The Trouble With Pine Grosbeaks

[aubintbay]

I see these little guys on the road several times a day on trips out to work and have been trying to shoot them with little success. I think the problem is the continued grey and sunless days for the last few weeks combined with the featureless background. Any pics I take appear under exposed and dark. Both of these are shot with a canon 70-300 at 300. the one with a little bit of sun was at f10 and obviously came out a little better. The other was a f4 trying to compensate for the dim day. At first look they were all very noisy/grainy most of which was removed in LR. The only saving grace to the darker photo is that I caught 1 in mid hop, otherwise not much of a shot.
Bumped the iso up but that did'nt do much either. Believe it or not these were the best I could manage.....even with processing.
Whats the solution??