Morning Sun - Kingfisher

[Graeme Sheppard]

I've got a thing for kingfishers, but they're often not very accommodating (at least for my 400mm lens). Anyway, this one did sit still and glanced towards the Sun before moving on.
I removed a couple of branches to the right and above the bird's head, and softened the background using Gimp. I'm learning with this, too, so any comments on that are also welcome, as well as on composition etc.
The original (before Gimp) is here, if interested.

White-throated Kingfisher, 9am
1/1000s, f/5.6, ISO 400
450D with Canon 400mm f/5.6L
Basic processing in LR, edited in Gimp.

[Ben Egbert]

Hi, this image seems a bit front focused. The leaves seem sharper than the bird. I would also crop it more to feature more bird and less environment.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the wide crop and good find, too. I wish the head were parallel to the sensor of the camera and agree that the bird looks a bit soft, probably due to front focus. At this shutter speed you could have stopped down to f/8 or so. I would also tone down the highlights. Keep them coming!