Flying Goose

Congratulations on making your first flight image Beth! Lots of fun isn't it? For a first flight image, I think you managed a decent shot. The exposure looks good and position in the frame is good. Not sure if you want any tips, but here are a couple things that might help. This looks like the detail is ok, but it could have been a lot sharper if you would have increased your shutter speed. I try to get a SS of at least 1/1000 (and even a lot faster depending on how fast the species is I am shooting) when shooting any bird in flight unless I am trying to make an artistic blur. With your set up, my guess is f/5.6 may have been wide open and ISO 800 is about where I would max out the Rebel to stray away from noise, so really just a matter of having more light if those things were true.
The other thing I will leave you with is...a lot of photographers when they first start shooting flight shots think it is better to shoot with the auto-focus having all their available points. Reality...the auto-focus isn't smart enough to focus on the head or the wing, so I use only center point when shooting flight shots so I can control where the focus is. Hope some of this helps and keep them coming!