posted a photo of yesterday<\/a><\/span><\/span>. But this isn’t one of them. I’m only including this shot to set the stage for the next one.<\/p>\nHere he’s fishing above a pond and fairly close to its surface. It had snowed the night before, so we see partially shaded snow at the bottom of the frame near the pond’s edge. When I took this shot he had just spotted a small fish below him and was about to go after it.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/belted-kingfisher-2939b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-2939b-ron-dudley\\"")
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nI got three photos of him diving after the fish but I like this one best, in part because the other two aren’t quite as sharp.<\/p>\n
In my portfolio of kingfisher takeoff and flight shots, this one is unusual in a variety of positive ways. The setting isn’t cluttered with branches, the perch he’d been fishing from is sharp, colorful, isolated and (I think) attractive and I really like the colors and mix of shadows and light in the background.<\/p>\n
As in the photo I posted yesterday, the alula on his right wing is flared and prominent but what really catches my eye is his incredibly stubby legs. If I didn’t know kingfishers as well as I do, and I couldn’t see his toes, I might wonder if some pissed-off larger fish he’d attempted to catch had turned the tables on him and bitten off parts of his legs and feet.<\/p>\n
Oh, and in case you’re wondering…<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/belted-kingfisher-2941-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-2941-ron-dudley\\"")
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1\/8000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nhe caught the fish, small as it was. He quickly swallowed it with his back to me.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/belted-kingfisher-3047-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-3047-ron-dudley\\"")
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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1600, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nLate yesterday afternoon I went looking for him again. I found him too, but this time he was in a different area and he insisted on fishing from a shaded perch. I hoped that if I caught him taking off or in flight I’d get him in the light but that didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
But I’ll tell you what – this guy is a helluva fisherbird. During my two sessions with him over two days I saw him dive on a fish at least a dozen times and I never did see him come up empty. Not once.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Same kingfisher as in yesterday’s post but this time he’s diving on a fish instead of flying off. (4 photos)<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2853,334],"tags":[953,2329,146,2330,3089,3637,2738,311],"class_list":["post-124567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","tag-alula","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-flight","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-salt-lake-county","tag-short-legs","tag-takeoff","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/belted-kingfisher-2939b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-wp9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124567"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124625,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124567\/revisions\/124625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/belted-kingfisher-2937b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-2937b-ron-dudley\\"")
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