Although the following linked article covers the settings for the Canon Mk 1V ... the author writes;
"I quite often get asked about which settings are best on the Canon Mk 1V for bird in flight photography. With that in mind, here is a quick how to guide geared towards users of the Canon 1D MK 1V. These settings can apply to other cameras and other camera manufacturers they are just labeled differently on and in the camera itself."
A good read. I use a Canon 7D, and Canon 400mm F5.6 L lens. I shoot in AP mode, center focus point, evaluate metering, AWB, F/6.3, auto focus, standard picture style, Al servo mode, 8 bursts per second, ISO 200 on sunny days which will give me about a 1200-1600 shutter speed. It is very tricky to keep the bird in focus while panning, I refocus while the bird is flying by holding the shutter halfway down to lock focus again. Then fire away at 8 burst per second. I do get a lot of out of focus ones, but the keepers are great. I use noiseware.com to eliminate noise if I need to, it is free. I use faststone image viewer also free for cropping, sharpness, etc. I don't have time to learn Photoshop. I also shoot JPEG.
I have a copy of Neat Image free Les, it's a great product but it takes some time to learn how to use it properly. Like Gregg I don't have PS, and process in JPEG, there's not many of us left now!
If I get a new bridge camera I shall pay special attention to this article, but it's not easy competing with the DSLR crowd.
"I quite often get asked about which settings are best on the Canon Mk 1V for bird in flight photography. With that in mind, here is a quick how to guide geared towards users of the Canon 1D MK 1V. These settings can apply to other cameras and other camera manufacturers they are just labeled differently on and in the camera itself."
Link to article by David G Hemmings.