Rufous-napped Lark

This photo was taken in the Kgaswane Reserve near Rustenburg South Africa.
The bird is sitting on a protea bush and judging from the bird-droppings on the leaves of the bush, his favorite perch.
I removed the white bird-droppings from the top right leaf.
Should I :
Leave the image natural, or
Clean up the other leaves also, or
Do a tighter crop to exclude the discolored leaves?


The views and comments of members would be appreciated.

500mm F4; ISO 400; 1/5000
Basic developing in Lightroom, spot removal in Photoshop

Hi Robert,
I like the composition and perch (minus the bird droppings). I would take out the bird poo. There is also a tan vertical on the left of the image that should go also. Nice details on the bird and BG.
Allen

Hi Robert, I like the angled pose, and perched high in the frame. I'm viewing this on my laptop, but I feel the IQ is off. Not sure if this is a large crop. The bird also seems over sharpened, and you have sharpening to the whole image. I do like the clean BG behind the bird. Comp wise, I would crop up from the bottom to just below the second leaf on the RHS and change this to a traditional landscape crop for the bird to look into more space on the RHS.

Here is what I had in mind

I'm OK with the composition, and the BG and subject are both beautiful, but I gotta say that perch has seen better days I'm sure. It is both dirty, and past prime. If you are into that type of thing, and since it seems your subject loves this spot, you could set up another perch right above this one and see if it takes it.

Hi Rob, I like the clever image design in Pane 1. I'd clean up the poop in a second. I find the single yellow stalk a distraction. I agree with Stu that the subject looks a bit crunchy, but just a bit.

with love, artie

Thanks for the effort Stu.
I like your composition more.