Very nice; in the second image you may increase contrast, i feel
I like the compositions.IMO the second image needs a bit darkening and some contrast
Agree with Nandakumar and Binnur about adding more contrast...perhaps more vibrance towards the end too...In #1 I did not know that your title also referred to the fallen branch...
Added the first pic by mistake .
Raymond - the biggest problem I see with the second image is that you have blown out the sky (i.e. highlight values of 255 in ALL colour channels). There is no simple way to fix that issue.
Manfred , I see your point and thank you for the c&c , I really appreciate it , so back to the drawing board .
I am never qpposed to the betterment and the chance to learn.
I like the first better, even though you hadn't meant to put it up.
The second is problematic, I think. I think the key problems are with the capture, and I don't think you can fully compensate. At least, I can't. Manfred pointed out that the sky is blown out. In addition, the image looks very hazy. Was it roughly mid-day on a hazy day? Those conditions don't make for good images, in most cases. You live in an area with high humidity (I know all too well--I lived in MD for 25 years), and that makes the problem even worse. In the summer and early fall, mid-day is often lousy for photos here too, and the haze is not as bad here as there. Try early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
I tried a quick edit. First, I added a LOT of local contrast to try to offset the haziness. This was done with unsharp mask, amount 36, radius 50, threshold 0. If you use Lightroom, the clarity slider will give you somewhat similar effects. Then I added a lot of vibrance, boosted contrast with a fairly extreme curve, cropped off some of the blown out sky, and cropped some of the bottom because of the out-of-focus foreground grass. I think this helped, but I don't think it is great.
I hope these suggestions help.
It seems that fundementally there are some issues and sometimes the corrections just can not due the justice . Thank you for all the suggestions and points that have been brought to my attention.