Winter Waterfowl on the Otonabee River

Went to the river this morning looking for the Bald Eagles and since they didn't show up I decided to practice shooting some other birds in flight. I noticed some small black an white ducks over the past few weeks along the same stretch of water. I think one group of them were Common Mergansers and the smaller ones are Buffleheads. I enjoyed watching them on their take off's and landings.

I look forward to the day when my budget will allow for a longer lens with Image Stabilization. In the mean time I will just keep shooting with what I have and look for consistent improvement both on focus sharpness and minimizing the noise.

I have read Teamspeeds posts about minimizing noise by exposing to the right which I have been trying to do but perhaps not to the extent that I should.

Camera settings this morning: ISO 800, Aperture F13, Shutter Speed 400.
Lens combination was a Canon 70-200 F/4 Non IS coupled with a Canon 1.4X extender
Camera was a 7D

Common Mergansers, I think. . .

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/DWLD​aN

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Common Goldeneyes on the bottom.

Thanks for the ID. Beautiful birds all.