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I understand about the eye contact, but he just never turned toward me. Exposure appears fine on my screen, not sure if it’s accurate though.
While I agree with the virtue of getting low, my personal preference would be to crop out the out-of-focus foreground. I find it distracting and needlessly invasive -- it seems to trumpet, "Look at me, the photographer. I got in really close." That may just be a personal bete noire, though -- I always want the photographer to be invisible in the shot unless s/he is the subject of the shot. It's a fourth-wall thing for me.
To me it's showing the environment of the bird, and has nothing to do with the photographer. It also adds a leading element that draws the eyes up from the OOF area and to the bird. But, of course, everyone sees things differently. To you it's a distraction. That's why I like hearing/reading other points of vies in this kind of forum.