Thanks for all the suggestions! Looks like I was off on many counts!
I do have a carbon fiber tripod but not a gitzo which I brought with and yep, should have brought my monopod instead! For the first hour, all the bird did was sit in the tree so I used the tripod, 1.4x for some of the shots (which I just started doing to work on MF) and the shutter release but then during BIF I ditched all of those. I did try the polarizer filter for only a handful of shots but soon ditched that too. So for the most part, looks like I have to work on my settings. I got so caught up in the moment, going from sitting to in flight, I forget to change them.
So, for the next time ...
Manual select: AF expansion, or Manual select : Zone AF
evaluative metering
AF-ON, back button for tracking and auto-focusing
Highlight Tone Priority "enabled"
No polarizer
No tripod
Monopod or handheld
Got it!
Thanks,
Denise