[Brightcolours]

Thanks Dave, now it is more clear what you were trying to describe. The issue seems to be that the camera will see something closer to focus in the background and so it will not want/think to go "hunt" to the foreground because it already saw something "in focus". And the foreground subject is so OOF that no animal or eye is detected, so that won't help.

I must say that I have encountered similar "issues" with close focus/macro stuff with certain shallow DOF lenses on my DSLR too, and the work arounds appear to be the same (pre-focus within the subject range so the AF system can actually "see" the subject, for instance).

In the comments, users offer settings suggestions with the R6/R5 that help the issue, by the way.

DSLRs also have a tendency to focus at something they can see rather than something on the other end of the focus range, by the way... But perhaps the DOF with DSLRs is smaller at the AF sensor, so they have a bigger range where they can "see" subjects in the focus range, so this happens more often with mirrorless.

Of course that is not right. I meant "the DOF with DSLRs is bigger at the AF sensor". Now it should make more sense ;-)