Photographing birds in flight

For some time I have been frustrated by what I thought was my camera’s inability to do this well, for smaller birds especially, to the extent that I seriously contemplated spending a serious sum of money on something better like the newish Nikon Z8 or Z9 with their astounding focussing and tracking capabilities. A friend kindly let me try out his Z9, but I didn’t fall in love with it which at that price level I would have needed to do. But my Nikon P1000 has some tricks up its sleeve which, in spite of having owned it for several years, I did not know about or did not know how to use properly. It was me, not the camera, that needed improvement. I spent several hours practising yesterday to little avail, tinkering with shutter speeds, tracking modes and so on, but still produced only very blurry results. But just now, this, a Great Tit leaving the feeder, which although far from perfect, does not seem too bad at all. I am cock-a-hoop and will definitely be trying for more.