Small birds in flight....too hard

I find it almost impossible to get a passerine in flight. They are so fast and unpredictable. Every picture I ahve of a small bird in flight is quite horrible. There is something that always can go wrong. I had a scarlet tanager as you can see below, perfectly in focus off the branch... too bad i was on the worst possible shutter speed making the red bird look black.

The parairie warbler is just bad


Swallow out of frame

Yellow warbler that can be confused with a plane.