{"id":149394,"date":"2023-12-31T05:36:36","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T12:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=149394"},"modified":"2023-12-31T05:54:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T12:54:39","slug":"female-belted-kingfisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/31\/female-belted-kingfisher\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Belted Kingfisher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I probably like this photo more than I should. It has some flaws.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"149395\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/31\/female-belted-kingfisher\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,643\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;5.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;RON DUDLEY&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS R5&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1703865423&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;700&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;800&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.0003125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"belted kingfisher 9156b ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-149395 size-full\" title=\"belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Two days ago I found this female Belted Kingfisher fishing above some open water (there&#8217;s lots of ice right now) near Farmington Bay WMA. I&#8217;m not fond of the curved branch appearing to touch the tip of her bill and the setting is busy. But in the end I liked this shot, out of many I took of her, more than I expected to. For three reasons.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, including being seriously sick for over a week, this is the one and only photo I&#8217;ve taken in over two weeks that has any appeal for me. Sort of an &#8220;absence makes the heart grow fonder&#8221; kinda thing.<\/li>\n<li>I think the contrast between the shape, color and texture of the dominant branch, the actual perch, when compared to all the other branches, is both unusual and appealing.<\/li>\n<li>But most of all, this photo in particular gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I was determined to avoid having any of her body blocked by branches or twigs so I had to maneuver both my pickup and my lens carefully and delicately to get her mostly out in the open. But she kept holding her tail too high or too low, so that it was blocked by one or another of the branches. I ended up firing off a bunch of shots in the hope of getting her tail perfectly placed in the narrow &#8216;notch&#8217; formed by the two branches near her tail. This is the only photo where I succeeded.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know, I&#8217;m probably reaching. But in a photo-drought like I&#8217;ve been having, success is relative. And even degrees of it can be appreciated.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally, another kingfisher.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/31\/female-belted-kingfisher\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149395,"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":[2853,334,2782],"tags":[1008,7277,2330,311],"class_list":["post-149394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-female-belted-kingfisher","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/belted-kingfisher-9156b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-CRA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149394","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=149394"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149410,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149394\/revisions\/149410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}