The ideal angle of light

I took this picture of a male cardinal from my balcony overlooking my back yard. Notice the lighting on the bird. The face and the chest are lit while the right portion is in shadow. This is the ideal. I see a lot of pictures of birds where the subject is facing away from the sun or the brightest part of the sky, and that puts the most important parts of the bird in shadow with the least important areas in bright light. In art and photography there are always exceptions, but this is usually incorrect. The face is the main focal point, and it needs to be illuminated well. My settings for this were 1/1250, f/8, 200 ISO, and I used a Canon 500mm f/4 lens with a 2x teleconverter giving me 1000mm of focal length.