Pre capture is very exciting tech for a photographer so I'm super pleased to see a shot using it here. In other places I have been bemoaning the lack of pre capture on Sony cameras (apart from the very latest A9iii) ie., in the following I'm as much interested in the processing and pre capture as I am in the image itself and that's not the way we usually approach things here.
The image. I agree with Pete S's analysis but I don't think it is sharp. This is where we talk techie stuff rather than strictly, the image. The kind of lack of sharpness issues are curious. Some areas look sharp. Others don't. Some areas have artifacts around the edges. Bird photos are traditionally where everyone goes pixel peeping because the feather and movement details are very demanding and as exciting for some photographers as whatever the image tells us about the subject.
The beak area is fine but there is fuzziness that I then wouldn't have expected across the feathers on the back. I'd have thought that your settings of iso 3200, 1/2500 and F9 should have been correct and should have frozen everything with lots of dof to deal with the plumage. With the beak as it is, I don't think camera movement is involved.
Are pre capture images on the Sony recorded in jpeg or RAW? Is this a crop from a larger image? I'd imagine that the original is jpeg but maybe not. Have you done any post processing on the image and if so, what did you use?
A favor. If you have a couple more from this shoot I'd very much appreciate it if you could post a couple here.
Many thanks.