Hi David,
That’s an excellent approach. The designing phase, especially taking good enough time and efforts for considering the composition is critical, because no matter how perfectly you can handle the medium of your choice, it is very hard to make a successful piece if the composition is not good.
With regard to this particular subject, I would delete the tree and add something different. I would focus on the fact that the birds are looking in the completely opposite directions and try to emphasize the interestingness.
Something like this:
I once wrote about my idea about how to utilize photo references.
If you are interested, the discussion is in this topic.
Good luck with your new project! 
