![\"belted-kingfisher-6739-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/belted-kingfisher-6739-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis female Belted Kingfisher continues to taunt me.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n She appears regularly at a local pond near my home but great photos of her continue to elude me. She allows me close but her favorite fishing perch is high in a tree and cluttered with branches. And on those occasions when she successfully dives on a fish she always hauls it across the pond to a faraway tree before knocking it senseless on a branch and then\u00a0gulping it down.<\/p>\n This composition includes lots of blurry branches on the right\u00a0so I…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n actually prefer a vertical crop that gets rid of most of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In sexually dimorphic bird species males are nearly always more colorful than females. In\u00a0the few\u00a0exceptions to that rule there’s a reversal of sex roles where the males tend to the nest instead of the\u00a0females – phalaropes are one example of that. But in sexually dimorphic Belted Kingfishers the\u00a0bright rusty-red belt across the lower breast of the female makes her more colorful than the male who lacks it\u00a0but there’s no sex role reversal. What’s going on?<\/p>\n It may be explained in combination\u00a0with\u00a0yet another quirky trait of the species. Belted Kingfishers are highly territorial and the males often (though not always)\u00a0remain on their territories year-round so they don’t give up prime nesting territory and have to compete for it again in the spring. The females, on the other hand, migrate south for the winter.<\/p>\n So one theory suggests the female is more colorful as a visual signal to a resident male that he should welcome a returning kingfisher with a rusty-red belt in the spring instead of chasing her off. But researchers admit they don’t know that for sure and suggest\u00a0further research is needed.<\/p>\n Whatever the explanation “my” female will likely be gone soon so I’ll probably be making many more trips down the hill to the pond before she departs.<\/p>\n![\"belted-kingfisher-6932-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/belted-kingfisher-6932-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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