These birds are similar in colouring to the Moorhen, but much bigger and heavier billed. They are proficient swimmers but prefer to hang around the margins of banks and reeds. I was lucky to catch this one soaking up the morning sun.
In ACR - Moved highlights to the left an shadows to the right. A touch of clarity.
In PSCS6 - Curves adjustment layer for BG and one for bird. Vibrance layer on bird. Cropped and smart sharpened for web posting.
No NR on BG
Very nice! Looks like good sharpness with very nice tonalities and color. Interesting pose and good view of the eye. Nice BG work.
With more practice you'll zoom in just that squeak more to get the most pixels on the subject, but this much crop isn't bad. Just that none is best! But it looks like you were going for the focus point on the face in the original composition.
If you do the focus and recompose thing, you don't want to recompose by zooming -- that can change the focus. But you can zoom first, move the camera to put the focus point on the eye, focus, hold the shutter halfway and recompose.
Your main image is not at the full height of 1000 (1200 wide x 1000 tall and 400 K is the max). It's easier to critique if the image is as big as possible, in pixel dimensions. I don't know if it got reduced when you added the crop illustration, or if you held it down. You might do a second panel immediately following to show the crop.