I'd say it's down to shutter speed, Prostie. 1/40th of a second is around 20 times slower than I'd want to be using with an effective 500mm focal length. Or ten times faster than that, at the very least. A tripod helps, of course, but in the end, shutter speed is king. As soon as the light starts getting ordinary, take off your converter, open your lens up wide, and push your ISO up as far as you dare (I mostly use 400 in good light, 200 in very, very bright light, 800 in fair light, and 1600 in poor light, though your effective max ISO before the noise gets too bad varies with different camera models, so you will have to make your own judgement there).
Always better to crop a good quality image with a small bird in it than wind up with a big bird in a poor quality picture.
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