1) Rule of thirds. When snapping birds through a window that is framed by curtains, I often don't have time to consider perfect composition. If I wait too long, I'm photographing an empty branch. I'll often plant the bird smack in the middle of the frame and plan to crop later.
2) Cropping: The small finch in the original shot is nearly lost in the branches. Cropping focuses interest on the main subject.
3) Framing: I love to shoot objects through natural frames. I considered cropping out the branches on the far left, but it made the photo too heavy on the bottom. Instead, I framed my crop to place the bird in the lower right third of the image, framed by surrounding branches, and kept the left-most branches for an anchor.
I played with Levels and brightness, and bumped the hue & saturation on the bird only just a touch, to really pop him off the branch. I considered changing the rest of the image to B&W, but it was already so pale and neutral I decided to leave it au naturel.
Comments on my decisions most welcome!
Edit: Taking Julie's advice, I cropped out some of the left-most branches. Her suggestion proved to be right-on. I thought while I was at it, I'd clone out some of those soft-focus branches as well. See image #3.
Shot manual, handheld. Shutter: 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 200, focal length 281mm
