Cardinal w/redo

Nice light and detail.  I like the head turn.  I'm not a fan of centered images and I would probably crop a good part of the right side of the image to de-center the bird.

Thanks, David. How is this redo?

I prefer this approach to composition.  I like it much better.

Nice one Barbara.  Looks like you got down really low for this shot, and I like that.  You got a nice pose from the bird, but it's a bit small in the frame.  Can it be cropped at all?

Thanks, Jim.  As far as the cropping, it's already probably a little over 50% of full frame after the last crop to de-center.  I probably could crop more, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that to post here on NPN. 

As far as the POV, I was sitting on the ground.  The only problem with that is that at my age (and because I'm female?) every time I do that these days someone asks me if I'm okay, even if I have my camera in my hand.  This happens when I'm back in Florida (as I am now) and I go I go to Sweetwater Wetlands Park.  It even happens times like a few days ago in Georgia when I had gone for a walk with my daughter and my grandkids on their new bikes, they all wanted to repeat the walk and I said I'd sit in the grass and wait for them.  A man and his wife driving by rolled down their window and he asked if everything was okay.  :)  But I do really appreciate the concern, though I don't look forward to the time when I do need someone's help.

I like the low angle and you have some nice detail in the larger version.  The repost improves the composition IMO.

Nice low angle as someone else mentioned, Barbara.  I've had that question asked too.  Not a big deal.  The recrop looks like an improvement to me.  I wouldn't worry about the quantitative amount of the crop.  If you completely nail the focus, you can crop down to the point where you're viewing the image at 100(I don't recommend it often).  I've cropped a few to less than 15% of the original size and still had it work.