I wrote a post not too long ago talking about how all my bird photos are cropped. Now I have purchased a teleconverter for my zoom lens and I can get quite a bit closer.
Some birds will let you get fairly close to them... like this lovely Peacock in the park. Now I'm able to get some shots with no cropping and I do find it makes a lot of difference in the level of detail I can see.
I took this close-up from about 10 feet away. The combination of getting physically closer and also having a more powerful lens is very cool.
Here's a crow I captured a few days ago. Again I was able to get fairly close, and also shoot with higher magnification.
Great Blue Herons in flight... I can't always get close to the bird so sometimes I still have to crop in, but not as much as before.
I'm pretty happy with my new setup now. I still don't have a super long lens. My zoom and teleconverter are giving me 420 mm which is not a lot for birding, but it's an improvement.
Here's a final photo where the bird came to me, so I got a close-up shot even without my bird lens. This is a Starbucks Crumb Sucker, nice and close. I hope you enjoyed these photos!
All photos were taken by me, 
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