Gadwall

This image was created at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Tyre, New York on 5/5/18 at 6:49AM. Image adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hand held, Medium crop.

Canon 5D MarkIV
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
600mm
ISO 1600
f8.0
1/1600sec

Sharp. Nice light. Nice duck -- not the easiest species to photograph. The background stick are obviously distracting, especially the ones coming out of the top of the bird's head and back.

with love, artie

ps: I do understand that the place is difficult for photography.

Nice composition using the rule of third and the exposure is fine.
As mentioned by Arthur Morris, I also find the sticks very distracting. If you had moved slightly to the right, the duck could have been without the sticks through the head.
Also, a lower f-number could have blurred the sticks a bit more but probably not sufficient to avoid the distraction.

Regards Steen

Nice sharp pic of the bird in lovely light.
I wonder if it would help to ditch the rule-of-thirds and crop slightly more on the left to reduce the distraction of the sticks?

Lovely Gadwall in lovely light. Unfortunately, short of doing some serious photoshoppery, the sticks kill it for me.

Tough situation you had there as you were at the mercy of the background. Good light. Cool duck, one I have not had the pleasure of photographing yet.

Beautiful light. The sticks are distracting, as noted.