Please Critique

[Bhoert]

What are your opinions of this photo that I took? Be honest and ruthless if need be.

 

[john.margetts]

For me, the bird is too far to the right. I would have him/her looking at the centre line. That is, have the empty space in front of the bird, not behind.

 

[dxqcanada]

Head/Eye is not in focus ... big issue.
Cropped tooooo close to most of the bird ... just the head is not interesting enough to carry the image.

 

[dxqcanada]

... and the background objects on the left are distracting.

With wildlife photo's, getting focus is very important.

Keep an eye on what is behind the subject ... if you can, move around and view the entire scene ... not just the bird.

 

[zombiesniper]

Agree with the statements above.
What can help sometimes in this situation is to shoot wider than you intend the final product to be. It will give you room to crop the bird where you want it. It also allows you to place your focus point where the eye will be in focus.

As you can see in the first pic below it's straight out of camera and the second is cropped, plus adjustment of white and blacks.

Before by Trevor Baldwin, on Flickr

After by Trevor Baldwin, on Flickr

P.S. Keep trying. Every photo is a new chance to learn.