Black Shouldered Kite landing

Canon 7D
Canon 300mm f2.8L IS USM Mk II + 2 X extender MK III - Bean bag support
ISO 400, 1/1600 sec, F8, AP, EMetering

Time around 8am
For ISO 400 it was a bit grainy on original and I'm not sure why.

When I processed the card later that day I was excited as it reminded me of an image I had seen on Arash Hazegi's site of a White tailed Kite ( I think ). Althougth it is nowhere in that class I was still pretty chuffed.

ACR - basic settings
PSE 9 - I cropped the image first off trying to work out composition. The reason I cropped it this way is that I know that it will land on the branch to the left and at the top so I placed bird in the bottom left third. There are obviously a number of variations.
After making a copy I started cloning a few small branches and leaves. I felt that what I left may not be that distracting as well as the other bird watching it's sibling coming in.
I then did NR and followed a shapening technique from APTATS 2
Layer Adjustments - levels and Brightness and contrast
Backround did color curves etc
Sized and SFW

In my eagerness to learn I tried posting this in ETL but I had already posted yesterday. Hope this is ok here. C&C very welcome
Thanks in advance

Hi Carl,
Welcome to BPN! You will will learn a ton of stuff here and really grow as a photographer.
This is a nice image. You have terrific light and a great landing pose and a great BG.
The kite is sharp but not "tack sharp" and I would take the image back in DPP or ACR and address that.
I wonder if the image was underexposed and that is why you have noise in the BG (because you brought up the exposure). I would do another round of NR on the BG.
My main issue with this image is the head of the sibling. I would clone or crop it out as it adds nothing to the image and distracts from the main subject.
A nice image that is worth reworking,
Gail

Gail thanks for the great feedback. I will definitely rework the image as suggested. It is one I would really like to get right if possible.

Love those grappling talons, and upswept wings, light looks good to me, quite contrasty which I personally like in an image. Liking how you have got a catchlight in the eye and color showing in the iris. Background is nice, but maybe another round of noise reduction would be a bonus and not keen on the head of the other bird and would suggest removing it. Sweet shot that could benefit from a couple of tweaks I think

Hi Carl. I'm relatively new here as well. You'll get a lot of great feedback. I know I often wonder if my work is good enough to display with all the excellent shots I see here. But this is how we learn. The suggestions and examples from BPN are the best way to improve in my opinion.
You've already received some great advice with this shot. I also feel the sibling bird is a distraction that doesn't help this shot. Either crop it out or remove it. I might also take a little off the top as there is more space up there than is necessary. The lighting and background are really sweet. I believe this will be a real keeper!

Carl, something like this would look good and you can do much better with the RAW file.
Sweet light......

BSKjuvi1dk.jpg

Very nice capture! Love the light and the landing pose. Dan's repost looks great and when I first looked at it I thought it would look better with a good amount off the top to reduce the impact of the noise in the BG and the siblings head dosnt add to the image IMO.
Well done

Carl,
This is absolutely superb landing pose. Very nice wing position, HA, nice lights.
You have got very nice advice by Gail, above.

Regards,
Satish.

I like the sweet light, wing position & landing pose. Gail addressed the main issues perfectly & Dan's repost covered them very well.
Because of the landing pose, Personally I wish the bird placed a little higher in the frame. TFS

Nice image , great moment captured, details on the bird look ok to me
I like the light and yes this is surely a image that is worth putting more effort in , you have great advice above.

Thanks. Everyone for your valuable input. I'm going to spend a bit of time on this and try hone some skills before I repost. I am finding this a great place to be and am learning enormously

great landing pose & exposure. feel it can take a bit of sharpness as mentioned above.
i like Dan's comp but with the head of the onlooking kite included.