Welcome to the forum! I used to live in Wantage before moving to the Netherlands.

Unless you have a really steady tripod you will get movement when you press the shutter release, certainly with the Bigma on it. I assume you had the Bigma on the tripod not the camera?
These were taken with both a Ds and the K20D - the Ds offers less "cropability" than than K20D does which will result in poorer quality images. The noise levels don't help either when cropping.
It would be good to see the uncropped versions.

Edit: if you don't have a remote release, either the IR or a cable one get one. Whilst you can use the 2 sec delay to counteract wobble it isn't any use for birds.

Do you have a Pentax flash? You can set that for high speed sync, by setting the flash to HS mode. The flash will send a series of short low intensity bursts. This can result in underexposure as it is really intended for fill-in flash to lessen shadow and the like, so it may not work for what you want.
The faster the shutter speed the less light the flash emits.

I guess the 55-300 doesn't focus that close or you would have had a great shot too

Welcome to the forum Sue. What a great shot. Is that John's camera he's peering into?

I think you need to check it in better light too, not only with a tripod and static object. The forecast is for better weather tomorrow, so try it in brighter light before getting on to Chris.

Ok you need to decide material - carbon fibre is lightweight and sturdy, but expensive.
Then you need to decide how tall you want the tripod to be, without using the centre column. And how low you want it to go. Whether you intend to carry it about with you or is it for home use only. How heavy is your equipment - the heaviest lens you have plus the weight of your camera plus the weight of a head which will take that weight = the minimum weight the tripod must hold. Go for the least number of leg sections you can - more less = sections less stability.
Then look at the Manfrotto site, the Velbon site, the Gitzo site, the Slik site plus any others you can find and see which tripods/heads meet your requirements. You don't have to have a head which is the same make as the tripod.
If you can go to a shop and see some tripods, taking your camera and lens with you to try out. See which one feels right.

I have a Velbon CF 630, which together with the head (a Markins Q ball) cost more than the camera I had at the time, but definitely worth it.

It still shows issue 1 as the current issue on the website. I hope it arrives before I go on my hols, and gets here as fast as the last one did.

Another point - do the other limiteds have the sliding lens hood? It seems like a neat feature to me.

Ned Bunnel has some more shots on his home page : http://nedbunnell.blogspot.com/
Edit: only photos of the lens - sorry!