I like the walking pose and fall color feel of this image. Nice DOF and excellent exposure. I would clone out the large white area in front of the bird if it were mine.
Very nice indeed Simon I like th epose. I suspect the colours are a very close representation of the scene. For web presentation purposes I too would be tempted to deal with the large white area and I think I would deal wit the yellow/gold area by the tail.
The repost is a big improvement! I like the sharpness, angle and pose. There is another object in the background (linear object to our left of the birds head) that I find mildly distracting.
Thanks for all the comments. Their great and it shows that I am improving thanks to all the advice from this site that I've been including in my attempts. I also saw the linear object to the left of the birds head and was unsure whether it would be taking the cloning out to far. Perhaps I'll go with my instincts in the future and remove what ever I feel distracts from the overall image.