I too, often find myself wondering how best to photograph a given situation. So what to do? The time is well before sunrise, is seriously backlit, and the wild subject easily spooked.
In this image, because it was so dark, I didn't think that a portrait of the subject was easy to happen. So this is my attempt at working the situation with what I had ... I thought start going wide, and try making a landscape. See if I can capture the color. In experimenting, I have found that I buck the general exposure trend here (in exposing to the rightmost histogram). In this case, I was bracketing, and have found that -1 or even -2 can really help bring out the color in the sky. Does the intense color and gradient draw you to the subject, and can you tell what the subject is? Does it work for you?
Thank you for looking, and your suggestions are always appreciated.