{"id":165742,"date":"2024-12-09T05:58:41","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=165742"},"modified":"2024-12-09T08:25:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T15:25:53","slug":"belted-kingfisher-avoiding-a-guaranteed-headache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/09\/belted-kingfisher-avoiding-a-guaranteed-headache\/","title":{"rendered":"Belted Kingfisher Avoiding A Guaranteed Headache"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days ago I was photographing other birds on a pond while waiting for the female Belted Kingfisher to show up on her favorite fishing perch. I couldn’t see that perch from where I was but she always announces her arrival by chattering loudly. If I heard her, it was my plan to back up my pickup about 50′ so I could see her through the branches and twigs and get her in my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

However, I thought she might not show up that morning because there was a thin layer of ice on the part of the pond below and near her fishing perch. The combination of ice and diving on a fish isn’t a good mix for kingfishers. Instant headache. Or worse.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But show up she did, so I backed up my pickup and got her in my viewfinder for about 10 seconds. When I took this photo I don’t believe she’d yet realized that there was ice on that area of the pond, including directly below her. The ice was thin and transparent so it was hard to see.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe this was the moment she noticed the ice below her. Almost immediately after this shot, she was gone. When she took off she flew to the other side of the pond to fish an area where there wasn’t any ice.<\/p>\n

But I got extremely lucky when she took off.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I got what may be my favorite kingfisher takeoff\/flight shot, ever. If it isn’t, it’s close.<\/p>\n

She’s sharp, her entire dorsal body surface is well lit, I have light in her eye and I love her dynamic flight posture. If I could wish for anything, it would be for a more interesting background but I’m not complaining.<\/p>\n

After this shot, things quickly went downhill.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In the next two shots, there were twigs between me and the bird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The only bright spot was that it was a good test for my Canon R5, which managed to keep my active focus point locked pretty well on the kingfisher instead of the twigs and branches in front of her.<\/p>\n

These last two photos will never see the light of day again but in my opinion, that first takeoff shot is a gem.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo #3 may be my favorite kingfisher takeoff\/flight shot, ever. (5 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165745,"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":[7698,6214,2330,311],"class_list":["post-165742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","tag-belted-kingfisher-taking-off-and-in-flight","tag-canon-r5","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/belted-kingfisher-6636-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-H7g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165742","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=165742"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165775,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165742\/revisions\/165775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}