Many in the bird photography world of my region prefer full-daylight photos with the whites of the light "balanced".
This is fine, and I enjoy them also, but I also enjoy the light of early morning or late afternoon where pure white doesn't exist - a concept called Red-5 by world renowned nature photographer Andy Rouse. Visual artists such as my painter wife understand and appreciate this much more.
Here we have an example and as I said, it is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea.
This Snowy is back-lit minutes after the sun had already set behind the low trees. It was my last shot of the day before heading home.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, ISO 1250, +3 1/3 exposure compensation. Taken vertically, I cropped it to format the image horizontally, eliminating the lower part of the fence-post. Slight snow horizon tilt corrected (merci Dom).
The incredible capacity of this camera gives me low-light performance that I didn't have with previous cameras.
Cheers,
Mike