Experimenting

I was looking across he pond at this Mallard hen today. I could not get closer so I went to maximum zoom with the following results. Not Good!

The camera is a Canon  Power Shot SX50 HS with 50X zoom plus 4X optical zoom. I was sitting and bracing the camera on both knees.

Focal length 215 mm ( 4995   35 mm equivalent)

F number 6.5

Iso 500

1/160 sec

Day was overcast

 As you can see, the image is not very good.

Any body have any ideas on how to sharpen this up? I.e get more detail?

Pond Life

I decided to take both dogs for a walk to the pond today. Yesterday, I only took Brooklyn and Boots howled his head off in protest! They were both very well behaved, but I don't know how many more walks Boots has in him. He was shaking in the hind end pretty bad by the time we got home. 

 The lonely little muskrat was still swimming around.

 A Magpie was squawking in the tree at my presence.

The pond water is getting pretty cold . Brooklyn did one retrieve and then lost interest. Boots dropped the pond level a lot having a very long drink.No ducks or geese around and none flying.