![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/belted-kingfisher-7106-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-7106-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nKingfishers diving from their fishing perches are among the most difficult photos I’ve attempted to get. It can be done but doing it well is another matter.\u00a0There are\u00a0just too many things that can and do\u00a0go wrong including clipped body parts, eyes that are hidden or in shade, soft birds,\u00a0backgrounds extremely cluttered with branches and\u00a0blown exposures. In this situation Murphy’s Law rules for me.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0clipped body parts are the primary offender –\u00a0kingfishers take off after\u00a0fish in a blindingly fast power dive and\u00a0it’s usually impossible to anticipate so clipped or cut off\u00a0wings\u00a0or “air shots” are\u00a0the\u00a0rule rather than the exception.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Two days ago I\u00a0finally found some more kingfishers. There were two of\u00a0them, a male and a female, who may or may not have been mated. It was midafternoon so the light was still harsh but I was so excited to find them I simply had to take a few shots just for old time’s sake.<\/p>\n This is the female and\u00a0I only had a couple of minutes with her on two different perches. I chose to post her on this perch because it had a clean background –\u00a0the other one was a mess of jumbled, out-of-focus branches.\u00a0Largely because of the harsh light and shadows it isn’t a great\u00a0photo but hey, it’s a kingfisher up close so I was happy to get it.<\/p>\n But what I really wanted was a high quality takeoff\/diving shot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Five minutes later when she dove (dived? – there’s that quandary again)\u00a0after a fish from the more cluttered perch I came close but no cigar. When I saw her concentrate her gaze on a spot on the water below her I fired off a burst just before she launched and got one shot with all of her in frame. I was lucky to\u00a0not clip anything because this is a small crop and almost full frame horizontally. I especially like the well-lit look at her entire dorsal surface where we can actually distinguish each individual flight feather.<\/p>\n In an action shot like this one the branches in the background don’t bother me so much but we can’t really see her eye and her head could be sharper and in my view those are significant faults.<\/p>\n So my attempt at getting quality kingfisher takeoff\/diving shots is still a work in progress but I thought I’d provide readers a progress report of sorts.<\/p>\n And I’ll admit that the quest is almost as much fun as success.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – I promised I’d keep readers updated on the nesting Mourning Doves outside my window and for this bird photographer the news isn’t good. I haven’t seen them since they completed the nest so they must have gone elsewhere to raise their family. I suspect they did so because of all of the hubbub from my neighbors who often have to\u00a0pass almost\u00a0directly beneath the tree or perhaps it’s because the catalpa leaves in the nest\u00a0tree come out so very late. The nest is still in full sunshine in the afternoon and it’s been unusually hot for\u00a0the past few days. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kingfishers diving from their fishing perches are among the most difficult photos I’ve attempted to get.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/belted-kingfisher-7142b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-7142b-ron-dudley\\"")
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