Redwing

IMO it's all about patience and timing . When these guys come out in the open, you have to quickly take the opportunity or miss the shot and many shots are missed. A great background is of course much more pleasing and makes the subject POP but not always possible. My personal priorities are: how rare is the bird, how special is the situation, the background and environment in that order. Some will disagree. Branches in front of the subject are usually quite objectionable. Knowing the target habits help a lot and getting as close as possible is also important. Hope this is useful.

Welcome, John. A nice setting for this beauty. We do usually try to avoid branches crossing in front of the bird, but it's not an absolute. To some degree, it depends on the species and how much they tend to inhabit brushy areas. This species is fairly easy to catch out in the open in some areas-in others it's amazingly frustrating. As a viewer, I keep wanting to move the branch out from in front of this one, so I guess that's my basic criterion. You did an excellent job on the focus and exposure, and getting the exposure right on one of these is difficult. I look forward to seeing your next post.

I agree with both Claude & Dennis in their general comments John, not much I can add.
I do appreciate your patience & timing to get the bird in 'call' mode, it makes this shot work..
BTW, I'm not a bird photographer either, I just keep fakin' it

The feedback is most appreciated, yo.

I will try to be mindful of patience as I think that is key. And I think I'll start by tryin' to fake it. That should be an achievable first step.

So thanks to all this, I'm off on another journey. We'll see what happens.

John,

Firstly this is a very nice looking bird and the pose is great. The branches are a nuisance and I think it goes without saying that the branch in front is not desirable, but what can you do, so many birds live in bushes and appear in the "open" very rarely.