I agree also ... I really love the Jaguar and find the whole photo worth staring at for awhile. The eagle seems a bit over processed or maybe just not the right shadow/highlights combo in the original lighting to make as worthy of a b&w as the Jaguar :)
ETA .. I do like the 2nd version better .. it is not quite as harsh as the first.
I don't think its a matter of being too processed or not. The jaguar could look too processed for some. What I see is better lighting on the jaguar photo. The main light source in the jaguar photo is in a much more desirable position to create mood. That's just not the case with the eagle shot. In that shot the light source (or the way you edited it) makes it look like the main light source is on the same axis as the camera angle (i.e. it's too flat). If it were me I'd push the luminosity way down (i.e. burn/curves) on the white feathers of the eagle's head and fade it in and then slowly bring it back up along the edges so that the main light source looked more like it was coming from off on the side similar to the jaguar pic. Or just reshoot the eagle shot with the more desirable lighting. Just a thought.
I prefer the color / non-desaturated eagle, actually. If you captured it in RAW, you could try tonemapping it in an HDR program to bump the textures maybe, before desaturating. I faved the jaguar a week ago ironically, perfect as is!
