These are pics from the river side near my house @ Eranhikkal, Kozhikode, taken on a Vishu day:

The place had a lot of birds, all the way from Kingfishers to Eagles, and was a  perfect place to test my new EF-L f/5.6 400mm lens :) Its been tough ... without a tripod, this is indeed a hard lens to use. Even at broad day light, I ended up increasing the ISO, to make sure the pics were not shaken. Whenever the birds stayed still for a longer time, I used the tripod and the timer. Any other case, the only practical choice was to bump up the ISO.

The first of the 'Thoni' (wooden boat) and fisherman pic is also with the EF-L 400mm (@ Av mode f/9, tripod mounted), but the second one is a closer shot with the EF-S 18-55mm, again @ Av mode f/9.