[Saphire]

Bruce.
Image editing goes back virtually to the start of photography only in a different form. Editing is not something new, computers have just made things a bit easier. It used to be done with film in just the same way, using scrapers on the negatives or a coloured pencil, filling in the areas that you didn't want to be seen on the exposed paper, or dodging and burning. It used to take a lot of time and effort to get it right and a lot of wasted paper. As far as I am concerned removing items that are distracting and of no importance is fine to remove, adding items to a photo is a different ball game, that is totally wrong in my eyes unless it is stipulated in the write up as being manipulated.
I wish I could be one of those photographers that gets it right every time, but thats not the case, occasionally I have to do some selective editing just to get rid of some of those annoyances

Rob.
You say that the image looks unnatural and a bird wouldn't leave itself vulnerable like that, I have lots of unedited photos with that sort of background, I try if I can get an angle so as to have no background just the sky as the backdrop, in my case the feeder is setup so I can have a plain green background, the conifers are 60yds behind the feeders so there is no clutter. I have attached twigs and branches to the feeder so they can perch before they go to feed. This is the same as editing accept I try and do it at source when I can.
I think Roy has done a fantastic job of removing the detractions, to leave a great image.