Thanks for the constructive criticism. Being a newbie I was trying to think of everything to get the shot right but those pesky little buggers didn't want to stay still for too long so I found it hard to get everything right at once!
I'm hoping the more I practice the more these things become second nature and I am able to get the perfect shot quicker.
These are very nice photos! Birds tend to be some of the hardest animals to photograph, so you're off to a good start. As mentioned above, there are some minor focusing issues in the first shot, and I would add that the actual bird looks slightly overexposed (at least on my display).
The second photo is the stronger one, IMO... The bird is in a better pose in a better location, and really the only thing that could use improvement on this photo is the exposure. You can brighten in it Photoshop, and that would probably improve it a great deal.
Thanks Natalie, I have had a play with the shot in photoshop but as with all areas of photography I am still a complete novice so any success is probably more down to luck than judgement
Anyway, I increased the exposure which kind of washed out the background and made it too distracting. So to make the Robin stand out more I did a bit of colour burn, and then tried to desaturate the background to give it less emphasis. I'm not sure if now the image looks a bit too over processed and slightly too washed of colour. What do you think?
I'm sure a more experienced photoshop user could enhance this much better than I currently can!