Purple gallinule (Porphyrio porphyrio) - captive

The angle is a little steep and I would like to see all of the bird. If you wouldn't mind, please list the equipment used so we can give a better critique.
These are such pretty birds. You captured the colors very well.

Cool bird. What awesome colors they have.

William, great colors on this bird.

For such a large bird, this is very tight in the frame. If the bird was looking into the space, it might feel less tight. But as his bill is almost touching the edge, I feel this gives the bird no room. Only the head is in focus, therefore again, pushing the viewer over to the right edge on the frame.

The exposure is excellent, especially as you used flash. The eye is razor sharp. I would like to know what compensation you used on the flash and the F-Stop used too.

William
There have been a lot of good suggestions made. Giving the technicals will certainly allow others to help you more. The colors are beautiful and the eye is very sharp. It sounds like a very difficult shooting situation but visiting again will give you more opportunities. It sometimes takes me several visits until I can figure it all out. Keep trying...you have the right idea.

Actually I don't remember very well if I shot with a 300f4 IS or with a 75-300, but it was one of the two. If I remember correctly I used no flash compensation, but I may used probably 0.5 exposure compensation. My flash is the 550EX.
One of my problems was not using a very wide aperture to have more DOF, but having enough speed to freeze a bird that was constantly moving.
This session was meant for a very small Geographica (NGM-Portugal) that was already published, so I'm not planing to work this subject again on a near Future. In this facilities, they had probably 10 birds, in big cages (probably 100m2) with on or two birds each. Some of them are so aggressive that if you approach the fence the jump with their feet toward you.

Great colors and a lovely bird, the rest you already know!!! Congrats!!

Looks like it would be worth the time you spent trying. I can't wait to see the other ones. Looks like a very nice bird.

Glad to hear of the attempts to reintroduce these gallinules. They are really beautiful birds. Your did well to catch the beautiful colors, although I find the angle a bit steep and a bit more depth of field would be good, too. Sounds like you have more images of these birds, looking forward to seeing them.