Your second photo of the sandhill crane looks the way I am used to seeing them. The first one is too dark. The camera lies all the time. (Just look at very wide angle photos of real estate for sale here that make rooms look much wider and brighter than they really are.) Adjusting everything to make it look it’s best is standard practice for me. Don’t be embarrassed to do it. My photography professor in college studied with Ansel Adams and taught me to use the darkroom. A couple thousand hours later, I do it on my iPad, not in a darkroom, but the original photo is just the starting point for a photo. Good work!
(Here’s a view of the Alhambra in Grenada that wasn’t nearly as good without a bit of tinkering.)
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