Thank you, Citypix! Since you're new here, allow me to introduce you to my favorite "neighbor." This is our resident Great Blue Heron (GBH) who has been around for several years now and I've named him "Alfred". I love being able to get shots of him, and last year I was pretty lucky. Lately we haven't seen much of him so I was tickled when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and when I checked realized it was indeed Alfred. I have other shots which I haven't processed yet, but this one immediately stood out.
Needless to say, I did need to do some judicious cropping in PP, though, he wasn't as close as he appears! The A1, 200-600mm [AKA "The Bazooka"] and 1.4x TC make a great combo, though. I was surprised that I didn't have much trouble hand-holding it, as that is an awkward and rather heavy lens that I normally put on the tripod. However, when I looked out the sliding glass door and saw that the Hooded Mergansers were pretty close to my deck I decided to just go with handholding as I knew that by the time I hauled the tripod out there and got the lens comfortably settled on it that the subjects would have long since disappeared -- they're very skittish little guys. As it was they did move away pretty quickly when I did get out there, camera and lens in hand. Even silent shooting wasn't enough to keep them from going further away to where they felt safer. I was pleased that I could capture a few shots, though. I guess my regular jaunts around the neighborhood carrying the 100-400mm (somewhat lighter and smaller than the Bazooka, but not that much so) have paid off!
