Need suggestions to salvage or at least improve this image; not sure if this is right forum to post in

I would like to take suggestions about this image. Many would automatically delete this but this species, Rose-bellied Bunting, is one of my favorite birds. Unfortunately attempting to get better pictures will be difficult as this bird is found only in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala; not easy places to revisit. I am an intermediate to advanced beginner with PS. I considered attempting to replace entire background, but that will be difficult as there is a branch obscuring the legs and feet of the bird. Not sure how that would work. Please feel free to make any suggestions you can, including trash canning it.

Hi James, I moved your thread to the main Avian board as "Eager to Learn" is just not busy enough anymore to get good conversation going.

P.S. I think replacing the whole background would be too much, and risk looking artificial. The biggest issue is the covered feet, but the rest I would just live with it if mine. It is a beautiful bird and I can see why you would have wanted it in a better spot.

The main issue is the branch obstructing the feet and no amount of PP can fix that.
I would clone out the OOF brach that intersects the bird as well as the curlycue branch on RH edge and the branch coming up from the bottom of frame.. Anything more will cause major problems.
I would also select the bird and increase the exposure on the bird by 1/2 stop.
So enjoy this image for now and start planning for the next trip! (When COVID is over!)

This one is tough to deal with. Very cluttered environment plus the steep angel is something we can’t fix in PP. I would hang on to this until you find one in better conditions

TFS

Thank you everyone for looking at this for me. I took this shot almost 2 years ago. Now,during COVID, I am going back and reprocessing many of my images. Alphabetized by species names, I am now in the "Rs" so this image popped up. I keep hoping for a miracle, but alas no one else has any miracles either. After all the virus stuff has settled down, I may try to go back for this bird. Although the bird has fairly limited range, within certain areas it is fairly common so hopefully, with luck I can report back with a new and improved shot.