thanks for the pointers brendan, and sweet shot of the nuthatch
the 1/4000sec, iso1600 was a mistake on my part......big oops......whats that camera to brain disease called?? lol i had my camera set to iso1600 and AV mode at f/4 trying to get some indoor no flash shots of my cats and forgot to reset everything. the ash tree is actually only about 8 feet from my feeder, and both cardinals and red bellied woodpeckers are very skittish birds, they take off if you blink, at least around my place. and yeah, the cardinal was above me, but that was the closest i could get to him without spooking him, or should i say, he wouldnt move any closer to me. and no, i dont own a 1.4x extender.......yet.......its on my wish list, as well as 100f/2.8L macro, ef-s 17-55f/2.8, 7D, and various other things..lol
once again, thanks for the pointers brendan


jim



P.S. where i work, there is a resident pair of northern goshawks in the area and they fly real close to us, when the weather improves, i am gonna try and get some pics of him or her