Golden

Wow, you obviously know what you're doing. I'm totally going to click on your profile when I'm done writing this to discover you have millions of views and some ridiculous number of watchers because this looks absolutely professional and just stunning. Still, it's probably more fair to critique this without knowing any background info on you just yet, so I'll leave it at that for the moment...

This piece caught my eye instantly. The photo was taken with so much sensitivity and care for the composition. You didn't center the bird. I love you for that. Just that simple artistic decision reveals how much thought was put into this one shot. So many amateurs will place the subject right in the center, so the viewer will stare at it for a moment, be all mhmm yup it's a flower in the middle of a page, and then move on to the next picture. Obviously sometimes centering a subject is the right decision to make, but I'm really glad that you recognized that it wasn't something that was right for this.

And oh my goodness the lighting is beautiful! It really feels like you captured one perfect moment in time with the sun shining over the water and this bird just lazily swimming along in its pond, living its beautifully short life in total bird tranquility.

As for your comment about dA screwing up the color of the water, I think it's kind of perfect like this. It can definitely be frustrating for something as integral as color being screwed up, but...honestly, if you hadn't said anything about it, I think we would all love it just as much. Even if it isn't actually golden, it still somehow feels golden. There's so much warmth and light. Beautiful work, I think it's a huge success!