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<\/p>\nHis reactions seemed a little overdramatic if you ask me. After all, kingfishers are 9 times larger (heavier) than Cliff Swallows.<\/p>\n
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This is the adult male Belted Kingfisher I’ve been photographing this spring and summer. Two weeks ago he was wet from a fishing dive when he landed on this stump which was so close to me I could barely keep the entire kingfisher in frame, even with his wings folded. All but one of the photos in this post are full frame (uncropped) so that gives you an indication of how little room I had to work with.<\/p>\n
I wish I’d had time to remove my teleconverter to give me more room in the frame but the action began almost immediately after he landed here so all I could do was fire away and hope I’d get lucky with a few shots that didn’t have clipped or cut off body parts.<\/p>\n
Here he’s beginning to react to an incoming and very aggressive swallow that took major exception to his presence on this perch. I didn’t get a good look at the swallow – it was most likely a Cliff Swallow but it could have been a Barn Swallow. And there could have been more than one of them.<\/p>\n
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When his wings went out in defense I had no chance of keeping all of him in frame but his dramatic defensive postures were still fun and interesting to see.<\/p>\n
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He kept turning on his perch to follow the incredibly quick swallow in flight which compounded the difficulty of keeping him in frame.<\/p>\n
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I usually couldn’t see the swallow through my viewfinder of course so the only way I could estimate how close it was to the kingfisher was to watch his wing position. The closer the swallow got…<\/p>\n
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the higher he raised his wings. In this shot I didn’t have a single pixel to spare between his right wingtip and the frame edge. You can’t come any closer to clipping a wing than that without actually doing it.<\/p>\n
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When the swallow would zip past him he’d follow it with his body which gave me the opportunity to photograph his dorsal plumage in good light.<\/p>\n
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A closeup of a highly agitated kingfisher. I have no idea where the second catch light in his eye came from. There isn’t a second one in any of the other photos. The only thing I can think of is that it might be the reflection off of the bumper of a passing vehicle.<\/p>\n
This is the only cropped photo in today’s post.<\/p>\n
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On this section of the stream the kingfishers have two favorite perching areas – one to the north and one to the south, separated from each other by about 100′.. When kingfishers perch in this area, the one to the south, it isn’t unusual for swallows to attack them. I’ve photographed those attacks in the past<\/a> <\/span><\/span>at this same spot but with the kingfisher on a different perch.<\/p>\n But when kingfishers perch in the area to the north I’ve never seen swallows bother them and I’ve often wondered – why the difference? The swallows nest far away from both areas so I’m sure the aerial attacks aren’t in defense of their nests, which kingfishers would be unlikely to bother anyway. Swallows and kingfishers don’t compete for food so why do swallows attack kingfishers at one spot but not at the other?<\/p>\n Sometimes I wish I could read the minds of birds.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" His reactions seemed a little overdramatic if you ask me. After all, kingfishers are 9 times larger (heavier) than Cliff Swallows.<\/p>\n