{"id":37625,"date":"2016-02-21T05:45:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T12:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37625"},"modified":"2016-02-21T06:23:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T13:23:05","slug":"my-female-kingfisher-came-back-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/21\/my-female-kingfisher-came-back-yesterday\/","title":{"rendered":"“My” Female Kingfisher Came Back Yesterday"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been looking for her most days this week but she seems to have certain requirements before she’ll show up. So far she has never appeared when there’s been enough wind to significantly\u00a0ruffle the surface of the\u00a0water (which has been most days this week). Such conditions would likely\u00a0make it difficult or impossible for her\u00a0to spot\u00a0fish below the surface.<\/p>\n

All three times I’ve seen her she’s made her appearance within minutes of the same time in the afternoon. It’s easy to know when she shows up because she announces her arrival with\u00a0her incessant and\u00a0harsh rattling call. She seems to be on a strict schedule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

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

She wasn’t as cooperative yesterday as she’s been in the past (no Cooper’s Hawk showed up this time\u00a0to push her into a tree near me) but she was close enough to impress me with her fishing prowess. Though she twice aborted a dive before\u00a0she hit the water I never saw her actually\u00a0make the plunge without coming up with a fish. In three of the four times I was close enough to clearly see the fish\u00a0which were obviously Weather Loaches (as this one is) and the fourth one may have been too. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that\u00a0these invasive loaches have become a mainstay in the diets of many of our fish-eating birds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I tried often to catch her at take-off but for a variety of reasons\u00a0this was the best I could do. She is quick!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"belted<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Her\u00a0preferred fishing perches were usually cluttered with branches so this is the cleanest close shot I was able to get of her. Yesterday was one of\u00a0our first truly spring-like days and since it was Saturday there was a lot of human foot-traffic along the river so\u00a0I believe she felt safer buried in branches like this.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0rufous belly band of the female Belted Kingfisher makes this species one of the few birds in North America in which the female is more colorful than the male.<\/p>\n

I know I’ve been posting a lot\u00a0of kingfisher images lately but I shoot what I see and\u00a0I post what I shoot. It’s just the nature of the beast.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

I’ve been looking for her most days this week but she seems to have certain requirements before she’ll show up.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37626,"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":[2329,141,2330,605,320],"class_list":["post-37625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-fish","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-take-off","tag-weather-loach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/belted-kingfisher-5135-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9MR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37625","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=37625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}