First let me say that photographing small birds is one of life's great challenges and improves with hours and hours of lurking in the wild and studying the habits and characteristics of each species. It is can be extremely frustrating, but also, greatly rewarding!

Composition/use of frame space - You would normally (and rules exist as guides, only) would want to have space in front of a subject and a bit of space above, to give (in this case) the bird room to move.
This crop seems to crowd the bird and confine him.

Colors/White Balance - I think the color is very good.

Exposure - Overall, the picture is generally well exposed, but the subject is not. The bird's face and eyes (the most important parts of a good bird photo,) are lost entirely in shadow. This is a problem with animals sitting in trees. You have to be careful to set your exposure to allow the important details to come out. Frequently in very complex shadows, you will need to use manual exposure and check your shot in your LCD as you work.

Creative use of Aperture/Shutter - no opinion

Perspective - Quite often we have to let the bird determine the perspective, but this shot seems a bit "overhead". I would try for a shallower angle of view. It could be accomplished by simply backing away. We all realize that the space we take the picture from is not always easily altered.

Creativity - It is pretty much a picture of a bird. If you could have caught it singing or fluttering its wings, it would be far less static. Of course you would still want to avoid the unfortunate shadow.

Emotion - The emotion is lost in the shadows

Forethought/Visualization The focus seems to be on the branch in the foreground and the bird is a bit "soft". This allows that pesky branch to dominate the scene. Sometimes this can be "fixed" (within limits) in post processing.

Keep shooting and pulling your hair out (I certainly realize that there may not be sufficient hair to pull)!