First time ever birding. Need advice/opinions

So yesterday I drove up on a hill just to get away from the city, and an interesting opportunity presented itself, I saw some birds around me and I decided to try photographing them.

It was quite a challenge! I had my 70-200 with me, all of this was shot at the 200mm end, on my xti, AI servo mode(center point) with custom function 4-1 enabled, evaluative metering.

No sharpening done

The big picture(just to get a feel how far away I was):

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

nice bird shots! keep it up.. if they are flying switch your mode to AI SERVO =) center AF point and follow

That's a Song Sparrow. 200mm is not long enough unless you are shooting the birds behind a blind. Usually, a 400mm is the least optimal focal length. You can shoot at a distance but not too far away that you can't even focus on the subject. There are 2 budget bird lenses most people use. The 400L F5.6 and 300L F4 + 1.4x converter. Some would use the 100-400L F4-5.6

mismis wrote in post #5754943
So yesterday I drove up on a hill just to get away from the city, and an interesting opportunity presented itself, I saw some birds around me and I decided to try photographing them.

It was quite a challenge! I had my 70-200 with me, all of this was shot at the 200mm end, on my xti, AI servo mode(center point) with custom function 4-1 enabled, evaluative metering.

No sharpening done

The big picture(just to get a feel how far away I was):

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

100% Crops(All shots at 100iso, f2.8 ) :

1/400s

1/400s

1/400s

Managed to get closer for this shot(These guys are fast!)

1/160s (I should have bumped up iso)
I found that it was incredibly hard to hit focus because the bird was to tiny, I really had to pay close attention to the viewfinder to make sure that the bird was in focus. Out of all my shots, I think about 40-50% were out of focus.

I guess any kind of comments/criticism is welcome, I'm really just here to learn more