{"id":37528,"date":"2016-02-18T06:52:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T13:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37528"},"modified":"2016-02-18T12:32:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T19:32:14","slug":"belted-kingfisher-stunning-tossing-and-swallowing-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/18\/belted-kingfisher-stunning-tossing-and-swallowing-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Belted Kingfisher Stunning, Tossing And Swallowing Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago this\u00a0female kingfisher landed close to me with a\u00a0meal so I was able to document the gritty details of the demise of the fish.<\/p>\n

After capturing a fish Belted Kingfishers pound their prey against a perch by rapid sideways movements of their heads. This stuns the fish and provides a means of turning it so it can be swallowed head first. It may also serve to break the sharp spines of some fish species such as bullheads and sticklebacks.<\/p>\n

All images are presented in the order they were taken.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This frenetic activity poses a real\u00a0threat to the eyes of the kingfisher, especially in a case like this where the fish (a Weather\u00a0Loach)\u00a0is long-bodied and may slap against the eyes of the bird, so in many of my images\u00a0she has closed her nictitating membrane. Here\u00a0we see the slimy wet spot on the perch where the fish has\u00a0already been pounded against the branch. The actual pounding was so fast that\u00a0most my images of it at this shutter speed\u00a0were soft so I haven’t included\u00a0many of them here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The loach was extremely squirmy and at times I half jokingly considered the possibility that the\u00a0fish was deliberately trying to use its long, eel-like body to tie a knot around the kingfisher’s bill in order to prevent the bird from swallowing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kingfisher tossed the loach into the air and caught it again at least once. To be honest I didn’t even know this had occurred until I reviewed my images at home. At this shutter speed nothing in the image is tack sharp except the fish so\u00a0I must have caught it at its apex when it was moving slowly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

At this point the kingfisher had moved to a different and more cluttered area of the branch.<\/p>\n

I had<\/em> to include this image because I was intrigued by the perfect closed circle formed by the body of the loach. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to\u00a0entertain me…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the loach was one of the stars\u00a0of the show I figured it deserved a closer look before its demise. Poor little guy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kingfisher repeatedly slapped the fish against the branch so hard that the bird’s head was often completely upside down. By comparing this shot to previous images we know the approximate\u00a0number of times the fish hit the branch by counting the number of wet spots on the perch (one of them even looks<\/em> like a fish head, complete with eye).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0loach had now\u00a0been “tenderized” enough for the swallowing process to begin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve noticed that some bird species, many raptors in particular, typically close their nictitating membranes as their prey is sliding down the hatch. At this point in the process\u00a0I’m not sure why it’s necessary – perhaps there’s some anatomical or physiological\u00a0reason for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the fish was swallowed the kingfisher held this pose for some time. Perhaps it was reveling in its success or enjoying its full belly (or waiting for the fish to stop squirming down there…)<\/p>\n

I’m hoping for another chance at this bird soon because I suspect that it won’t be long before she abandons the area to breed – there are no steep river banks close by (that I’m aware of) for her and her mate to dig their burrow.<\/p>\n

I suppose it’s actually possible that I could get lucky with her twice.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

A few days ago this female kingfisher landed close to me with a meal so I was able to document the gritty details of the demise of the fish.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37533,"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":[2853,334,392],"tags":[2329,137,141,144,2330,515,256,2854,720,320],"class_list":["post-37528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-female","tag-fish","tag-fishing","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-nictitating-membrane","tag-prey","tag-swallowing","tag-swallowing-fish","tag-weather-loach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/belted-kingfisher-2814-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9Li","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37528","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=37528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}