Teal

This male Teal was preening with his head buried most of the time but lifted his head for a second for me to get this shot.

Nikon D7000 300mm F4 AF + 1.4x tc. 1/800sec f7.1 ISO800, manual exposure. RAW processed in Lightroom 5

All C&C welcome.

Beautiful bird and I like the pose. I think, for me, it would be stronger if cropped a little tighter and if you tried to lighten the head plumage and the eye to bring those colors and details out more if possible.

This is a nice image.
The colors really pop on the head.How nice for him to perch on the little mound of dirt for you!
I would crop a lot tighter from the top to highlight the bird even more.I would also increase the exposure by 1/3 of a stop.
My only wish is that you were a little bit lower but maybe that was not possible.
gail

A little dark around the head, but beautiful otherwise!

Echoing what the others have said, I think you need to lose quite a portion from the top. I can see what you were going for with all the grasses, but there is too much there and it unbalances the shot. A touch brighter with the crop and I think it'll be a lot nicer

Ian agree about a tighter crop but the downside might be that you loose some of that nice reflection,will be interesting to see what others think, it's a very nice image that I would be well pleased with.

Personally I'm OK with the size of the teal in the frame but I think pointing your lens a wee bit more to your left would have improved the comp by placing it more to the right of the frame. I do agree the face is dark as posted and could benefit from lifting the exposure in that area (all the while being careful not to introduce unwanted noise in there).

Nicely composed and very well captured Iain. I like the head turned, the reeds and reflection too.

Thanks for the comments everyone.
I have tried to include everyone's suggestions in this repost. I lightened the whole image by about 1/3 then selectively lightened the head a bit more. I dodged the iris of the eye and burned the pupil. I then cropped a little off the right and some from the top. I think the IQ is just starting to suffer so wouldn't like to crop much more.

Excellent image in habitat. Re post looks wonderful. Nice composition.

Regards,
Satish.