Not an easy subject to photograph in-flight. Too bad it is past the parallel point (flying away). A bit of noise in the BG to smooth up...is this a heavy-ish crop?
Thanks for your input. The photo was cropped about 33.3%. I too noticed the BG noise, which may be smoothed with a noise reduction program such as neat image. I took the picture during midday in a location I have only visited once, hence never had another chance to improve it, shooting early in the morning with a better angle of light will improve the shadows. Nice point on the birds direction of flight.