when I first saw the picture of the 16-50 I honestly thought it had been taken with the 10-17 fish eye as well!
Painful lesson.

A Raynox is a close up adapter. It's a lens that screws on the front of your lens like a filter but the quality is staggeringly good. (do a raynox search on flickr.)

If they formatted your memory card they have acted illegally. It is viewed by the courts as "destroying evidence". If thet thought you had done anything illegal they would have to prove it in court and produce evidence, namely the offending photographs!

The 55-300 is much better optically than anything else in that price range. I had a Tamron 70-300 but the purple fringing drove me mad and the 50-200 is a nice compact little lens but the 55-300 in in a different league. I think you'll be very happy with the 55-300, especially at that price.

Actually Smudge and Chris A have a point. The K5 with the 18-55 WR kit lens and the DA 55-300 would be an excellent alternative and cheaper than the the 18-135 option. You will cover a greater range but lose the convenience of a single lens and full WR protection.

Depends on budget. For a one lens system I'd absolutely go for the 18-135. It may not be as fast as the Tamron but the noise performance on the K5 is so good that you can easily afford to use a higher ISO to compensate. It is weather sealed and will cover almost all situations admirably as you get the hang of things. If you then feel you need more quality glass you can review your photos and see which focal lengths you use most and choose accordingly. If you want to play with shallow depth of field get a cheap (but excellent) M or A series Pentax prime off ebay.

It is a "cracking good shot" but as everyone (including you) has said it is a tad soft around the head. It looks like the focus point is on the birds back or maybe it's head moved but a bit of sharpening and a touch more exposure & fill would (has!) worked wonders.

Sounds like a faulty camera to me. Mine doesn't do that.
Have you tried a different memory card? It's possible it's a storage problem rather than the camera.

Empire state, Statten Island ferry, Union Square farmers market on Sunday morning, Manhattan skyline at night from the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Shopping list!!!!

They're probably frozen solid. Look out for birds with bent beaks....