Long-eared owl portrait

I'm in Montana now conducting my Wildlife Babies workshop, and in addition to the baby animals we also had six different raptors to shoot, five of which were owls. I selected the owl species based on how beautiful and compelling their faces are. This is a long-eared owl. My preferred type of natural lighting for pictures of animals (and people) is soft and diffused daylight. If the sky is blue and the sun is bright, I look for shade caused by trees or a building. With this kind of light, contrast is at a minimum, shadows have detail, and the subject doesn't squint from a bright sun. My settings for this shot were 1/320, f/9, and 1600 ISO. I took this picture hand held with a 100-400mm Canon zoom.