Spotted Towhee and photoshop

[Trent Watts]

I welcome comments on a recent edit. I had a clear shot of a Spotted Towhee but it only stayed for a moment on the branch. In post I see a branch with berries obscured part of the head. In photoshop I replaced the berries with black from the head. Fortunately the eye was not affected.
Do others consider this an OK thing to do?
Any other ideas?
Thanks for any comments.

 

[AlanLichty]

I wholeheartedly agree with your edit and would do it myself had I shot this. Not an easy bird to get shots of since they tend to be quite skittish.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great edit I have done this myself many times

 

[JimFox]

What a cool shot Trent!

As for the edit, I don't capture a lot of birds, but the few I capture I almost always have to edit out a branch or two. The great thing for us today, is we can do it usually pretty easy and totally natural looking compared to maybe 20 years ago.

I consider it just giving Mother Nature a helping hand.

 

[Ken Rennie]

You haven't really changed the nature of the image so that would be allowed in UK Nature competitions except for Wildlife Photographer of the Year where you can remove dust spots only. Nice edit as well. Ken