After two hours of nothing

[gpsman]

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It was a cold two hours and time to call it a morning. Heading back to the car in concord great meadows, a family of nuthatches showed up. So cooperative. Sun came out , camera in hand.
Moral of the story; it pays to be patient. Comments on composition welcome

 

[BAL Land]

While it’s a very nice photo, I have a few suggestions/critiques.
1. I find the out of focus branch in the background very distracting. If you have photoshop or even Lightroom, I believe that is very easy to remove. Also, I find the overall crop of the photo too tight. Also, there is a lot of noise on the bird. Simple noise reduction(even if it’s not topaz or DXO pure raw) can do the trick(if you don’t overdo it). I do really like the bird’s pose and lighting.

 

[NorthernFocus]

Well done sticking it out. My experience is that "luck" improves proportionally with time in the field.

Regarding critique, I agree with the prior comment that the crop is a bit tight. Also less space on the tail end and more in front of the bird might be nice. The general rule of thumb is to leave more space in the direction that the animal is looking/moving. It looks like this image was cropped a good bit. May have been preferable to crop less for added space in the frame plus the noise would not look as severe.

 

[bajadreamer]

I agree with the above comments about crop, OOF branch and noise. I might also try to improve/brighten (very slightly) the catchlight in the eye to bring a little more spark to the bird.