How would I best crop this?

[jonhsame]

Hi guys, I was wondering how to best crop this photo I took.


I thought this one looked ok, but then the blue in the sky got a little distracting
1)

Here is one that got more of the bird rather than the background

Original
3)

(I used a friend's 70-200 f/4 IS with 1.4 extender at f/5.6 1/800 sec exposure, ISO-200 on my 20D)

Thanks

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi there,
I´d put the bird further to the left, that would crop the biggest part of the blue sky. You could also desaturate the blues a bit to help get more attention to the bird.
Unfortunately the focus is on the tree rather than the bird, but that can happen of course. The more your crop, the more obvious it gets. In general you´d want to focus on the eye of the bird though.

 

[tirediron]

I might even bump of the saturation just a hair on the bird to make him (her?) really stand out.

 

[dennybeall]

I'd crop it not quite so tight as some but less than others and play with it a bit to come up with this: