HELP! I'm peed off with peas!

What a nice way to start the day - Met up with dustystreets1 for a 'bimble' down the river this morning for a dipper/heron/kingfisher hunt. The river was quite high and fast flowing so unfortunately no dippers to be seen but we saw a pair of herons, just couldn't manage to photograph them. dustystreets1 is very informative to walk with, knows his birds from their song and has a good eye for spotting things. Came away pretty much photoless so while I was out I went on a kingfisher hunt at the other location in town. I saw it straight away, flew past and then sat amongst some branches with the sun shining on it. I ran to get to it before the man with the pushchair coming towards me scared it away. I located it in the viewfinder but before I could press the shutter it flew away. Damn you pushchair man! I'll be back.

I came back refreshed after my early morning amble, tried some more pea shots for the Camera Club theme of 'fruit and/or veg', with a slightly better set-up in my 'studio' (the old 3rd bedroom now used for storage/photography gear etc). Used my tripod this time and black background, off camera flash, lamp and led light -reviewing them on the back of the camera they still looked like work in progress.

I realised later when processing (haha!) my peas, they were definitely not quite how I envisaged them, so back to the 'studio'. Taking them on rapid fire means there's a hell of a lot of terrible chaff before you find anything remotely reasonable. Fed up of peas now, need some help with my set up I think - anyone any tips? Please??