Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment Stavhp, Ted, canondsluser, Tony, Calocokat, Ziggi, Keith, Fee and Sindri
it seems to me that your first photo wasnt about "here is a sharp bird" - up-close & personal with the bird, yet you lost on a great opportunity of creating a very nice composition if you had pulled back the zoom a bit and let the whole bird-bath get in to the frame with more of its base and more of the bg.
ziggi
You are right Ziggi and i hear you. The first shot was about a spectacle that I found amusing and this is a grabbed shot. The first shots were mostly obscured by plants I was behind .The starlings did not know I was in part of the garden as I was hidden from them.( looking for hummers)..my ears told me what was happening before I moved into position to see them. I had to shoot as i was moving into position because I knew they would pause, flee , panick...even before i had a clear shot. The lens used is a 400mm F5.6 prime so the only zooming I can do with this lens is with the forward and backward motion of my legs 
I cropped the image to rid it of OOF plants in the foreground at the left side of the image and I tilted the image to straighten the birdbath which is leaning a bit. Here is a full frame shot with the entire ( lopsided) birdbath but as you can see they have already started to disperse and the behaviour is changing dramatically.. Thanks for the comment as it keeps me thinking about how i could have taken the shots differently and will surely help if future similar opportunities arise.
