Hi Travis, that is what this foram is all about...learning. Love the intense look and the pose. The light filtering through the tail feathers is great. The whites on top of the head look a little hot, you may be able to correct some of that. Also, I would run another round of sharpening. Keep em coming!
Nice powerful image, the above comments are great to improve the processing , may be you can get a version out with the BG noise reduced and the stick cloned out, will enhance the image a great deal
keep them coming , i love it