These are very common birds in the Vancouver area, but because they move so fast and are shy of people, it takes a little luck to get such a good photograph of one. This one was at the Reifel Bird Santuary along with at least 400 others.
This was one of the first pictures made with our 300mm f4 auto-focus lens. The camera was set on aperture priority (we choose the shutter speed, the light meter selects the appropriate aperture) with a speed of 1/500 of a second. The aperture was not recorded but must have been large. Kodak Gold ISO 100 film was used. The lighting is completely natural, there usually isn't time to set up a reflector and flash wasn't thought to be necessary.
Believe it or not, no exposure compensation was used. The light meter of the Nikon F5 pegged this one well.