An old thread, but hopefully not too late to reply.
My first advice would be to be aware of the white balance. To me, these shots look too cool - often happens in outdoor shots where the light is low, and the auto-white balance thinks you're indoors with light bulbs, so it takes all the orange out of the shot. Check the colours in the preview image, and if it looks too blue or too orange, try some of the manual white balance options to correct it.
Particularly on the bird shot, it looks like it's taken with some digital zoom. Try to avoid digital zoom, as it just doesn't come out sharp, and often has coloured artifacts from enlarging chromatic aberration from the lens. I leave digital zoom switched off. Stick with the optical zoom, and try to get closer to the subject - although this is difficult to do with flying ducks. :)
The motion blur on the background can be a good idea, and if you're adding motion blur afterwards, you can go for a faster shutter speed to help get the birds themselves a bit clearer.
These comments are meant to be constructive, so I hope this is useful. Have fun taking lots more photos!
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