I should have responded to your post if I have seen it earlier.
Anyway, I think you already know that wildlife photography has been always dominated by C & N but don't let this you down. You have a very fine and capable K10D camera. I'm using it with a sigma 100-300mm/F4 + sigma 1.4x teleconverter and I'm very happy with the IQ.
In the Philippines birding forum where I'm also a member, I'm the only one using a Pentax body and a member commented that he appreciates by the image quality of the pictures that I'm posting. To me that was a good compliment since I've been shooting wildlife only for about 4 months and on weekends
. So far this is the method I'm using for BIF.
-AF-C for focus mode
-Center focus only (you can use multi-point if sky is clear)
-ISO400-600 (to ensure high shutter value)
-Hyper manual metering mode, green button is good for this (pre-meter on any mid-tone object on the ground to get correct exposure, make additional adjustment to aperture/speed if necessary or meter to the sky and expose to the right)
-SR off
-Continuous shooting drive mode
-If using a zoom, start at the widest and slowly zooming in as the subject approaching, then fire away if you're happy with the framing. I find the K10D to acquire faster focus with this method.
Hope this helps.
Cheers