What did I do wrong/how do I improve?

[SquarePeg]

@coreno There is a great thread/post by @coastalconn with suggested settings for shooting birds. I found it very useful. Wish I had bookmarked it but I'm sure you could do a search and find it.

 

[coastalconn]

This photo I took this weekend:
As you can see in this picture, especially if you zoom in, the ducks which are supposed to be the subject are blurry, or very soft, and the reeds have a "glow".
What did I do wrong taking this picture? I plan to take a lot of photos at this location, and want to improve my photo quality. Was it the ND filter? Is it the water reflecting? Doesn't look like motion blur, and I've been able to get sharp images with similar settings (but different picture composition).
)?

There are some good suggestions already. Remove the filter for sure. You have to get closer! When I started out I thought the same thing that I could just crop away to glory and it just isn't so. Just for a simple somewhat boring duck like this you have to be about 15-18 feet away with a 300mm lens. Mallard 5_11 by Kristofer Rowe, on Flickr Your s/s and aperture was actually fine for that lens for a stationary subject if you are very close and practice handholding a little. You should not need a mono/tripod with that lens. I don't even use one with my 500 F4 or Tamron 150-600 when I had it...

@coreno There is a great thread/post by @coastalconn with suggested settings for shooting birds. I found it very useful. Wish I had bookmarked it but I'm sure you could do a search and find it.

Here it is.. Capturing distinctive bird images Maybe the mods should pin it in the N/W forum?