Few bird in motion shots E-PL5 and 40-150 with teleconverter

Yep, definitely need to get close

(Not a bird in motion shot, though).

This was taken one morning late last year when I decided to walk to work along the beach for a change. Even for a casual shot like this you need to spend quite a lot of time letting the bird get comfortable, while at the same time trying to adjust you own position to get a decent background - which in this case meant almost lying down. All the while waiting for the right pose and everything else to be right (this was an extremely windy and partly cloudy day, so the light had to be right on the subject as well as the background).

You can't just stand on the edge of the water and just point the camera and expect to get good results, you have to spend a lot of time at it, take a lot of photos, and then be very selective about what you are keeping, and even then be prepared to edit for best results.