So pretty! My aunt had one like him but he passed away a few years back.

That is an interesting camera and lens combination you have there^^ I actually might have recommended the 400mm f/5.6 from Canon instead. It's a little shorter than 500mm, but since it's a prime lens it's also MUCH sharper. Your shot here seems a little soft, you can't see details of individual feathers. Colors are nice though! I think think if you close the aperture a little more you would have gotten nicer details :3 But as you said, it takes time to learn this stuff! I had to learn a lot in the beginning as well.
But stopping down the aperture really is important with zoom lenses. For example, I have a 25 years old 80-200mm f/2.8 lens for my Nikon D7000. I always stop it down to about f/4 and at that point it is just super sharp! Like in this one: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/14899283/
This one I took wide open at f/2.8 and you can see that the details in the fur are a tiny bit softer: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/13087632/

Also, you used a flash, right?^^ Direct artificial light like that always kills your details if you aren't careful. It is much better to have a remotely controlled off-camera flash, it gives you more control over the light! You get even better results if you just use a diffusor or if you bounce the light off a wall or off the ceiling. That way the light gets spread out more and becomes softer which keeps all your details intact!

But if you take photos of birds outside that isn't too important :3

As for a shorter prime lens, I'd just buy the 50mm f/1.8 II. It's about 100 bucks and it's really sharp. I don't have a Canon camera but I have a 50mm for my Nikon system as well, and if I had to choose one lens that would be it.

Haha yea, I only got that lens as I managed to talk $300 off its price while buying the camera body. Its really a lens I plan to set aside till I have more practice and need it when out and about in the fields.

Thanks for the suggestion on the aperture, I will have a poke at that later today. I do definitely want to figure something out with flash when I have more money to spare, I do however have a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II on its way to me (I purchased it on-line, so it hasn't reached me yet ^^ )

In regards to a prime lens for longer shots, I agree that I will be after something like that in the long run, especially as I will be chasing after birds. I am not a huge fan of zoom, but as I said I got carried away in the deal haha! If the Tamron ends up being not what I am after, I will probably sell it to get something else :D

That is a good deal if you got it 300 bucks off :3
And that is a good plan, too! The Tamron isn't a bad lens to start with. And since you are just starting out it also gives you an advantage. I always see zoom lenses as a "box of primes". After some time you figure out which focal length within those 200 to 500mm you use the most and then you can buy that as a seperate prime.
Lenses are also usually very stable in price, so if you sell it you won't lose a lot of money, especially since you got it 300 bucks off^^

Zooms can be really cool though, just like primes. The thing is that the super sharp high quality zooms are always more expensive than prime lenses.

Flashes don't really have to be expensive. Right now I own three of them and a remote trigger so they can all fire simultaneously. I bought one flash at a time over the course of two years, each flash cost me about 60 bucks and the trigger system cost me 30€ or so. They aren't Nikon flashes though, they are full manual flashes from a Chinese manufacturer called Yongnuo.
I actually highly recommend that you get at least one of those manual flashes. Next to my 50mm prime that fully manual flash probably taught me the most about photography and proper exposure!

The Heavens: "Now... before you hatch, what color would you like to be, NC?"

NC: -shrugs- "Whatever, surprise me."

Oh and I also just noticed that you uploaded this as a 3,3mb PNG? I wouldn't upload PNGs to FA. It messes with the quality of the image too much and it takes forever to open for some people when the site is slow.
Instead, I'd recommend using this Photoshop plugin: http://andreasresch.at/2013/04/07/w.....g-for-the-web/
With that plugin I just shrink my files to 1280xwhatever in Photoshop and save them as ~500kb JPEGs. That way the image is MUCH sharper because FA doesn't compress it since it already has the right filesize and dimensions, and the file is easier to handle because it isn't so big :3
I am willing to bet that my JPEGs that I shrunk with this plugin have finer details than any of the huge PNG photos here on FA ;D I know that PNGs are theoretically better for photos because there is less compression, but that doesn't really matter in this case since the site itself is messing with the quality.

Sure :) I tried it out and re-uploaded. Don't know if it looks any different on a refresh.

I don't really see a difference. But considering that the old file was 3.3mb and the new one just about 500kb I think that is a good thing^^ It's a lot smaller but it doesn't look worse!

Eeeeeeeeeeee rainbow lorikeet! I work with a ton of these little guys at my zoo, they're so much fun ^.=.^

Burd!