Sorry for the confusion on my earlier post.  I meant to say that I used the shutter priority mode which helps to maintain a high shutter speed for stop action (a senior moment).  Most of these shots were taken with an f-stop of 5.6 to 7.1.  I use aperature priority when I need a little more depth of field in a shot.  These birds are so large sometimes the 400mm lens gets you so close that you lose some of the details unless you choose a higher f-stop, usually around 7.1.  For inflight shots I try to get a shutter speed of around 1/1000th or higher in good light.  I hope that helps...

By the way, thanks for all of the kind comments!!


Mike