Hi Clive,
This is a great photograph; the subject is bright and alert, the lighting is good and the exposure is near enough to perfect.
There is only one thing that I would like to have seen improved with this photograph though, and that is the composition.
The bird is positioned in the center of the frame and although this is not a big concern to me, the fact is that running across the upper left of the frame is a beautiful soft diagonal. If you had just moved the camera a degree or two upwards and to the left you could have had the diagonal as a strong design feature in the image while placing the bird onto the lower third of the frame.
Part of the reason many people position the subject in the centre of the frame is because that is where the focus point that they tend to use the most often is.
I nearly always us the centre AF point for all my photography… and the simple reason is, day or night, I always know where it is going to be. What I do though, is the AF activation from the shutter release.
Most cameras now have user definable buttons at different locations on the camera body, and I have set up my cameras (including a D7000) so that I can activate the focus by pushing the AE/AF lock button, rather than the shutter release button. I then recompose the photo and take the shot… usually the whole action takes less than a second. The only thing to remember about working in this mode is that they AF setting needs to be on the AF-C (for continuous) as opposed to the AF-S (single) mode… otherwise the shutter may not release if the AF point is not sensing focus.
Have a look in your camera manual and see what focus controls are available to you.
Otherwise, great effort.
Cheers, Anthony