In the case of those pics, "A" for auto mode is your enemy. Autofocus is rough in foliage or other object the focus can lock on. For me, I would have used manual focus and preset the manual focus so it did not rove around. OK, so you can't read the birds mind and figure out where it's going to land. Then the option is to use live view/focus peaking and be fast enough to get the highlights showing the peak of focus on the birds head (the highlights jump out at the focus points you want. Or, another method if you are intent on staying with auto mode is to change to spot focus and one focus point, with the focus point specifically on the birds or birds head.

None of your pictures seem to me to be good subjects for sharp specific sharp focus in one area of the view screen. The clutter (branches and such) take control of your averaging AF modes both center weighted and averaging.

It would be best if you did not turn control of focus over to the camera for those subjects. Work on controlling focus points, with lesser more specific small areas of the screen like spot focus, or focus/hold/and recompose.