![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/belted-kingfisher-5241ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-5241")
<\/a><\/p>\nAs most birds do he obtained the oil from his uropygial gland (preen gland) located at the base of his tail. He was smearing it on his bill and then transferring it to his feathers by rubbing his bill over them or drawing individual feathers through his mandibles.<\/p>\n
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In this huge crop of the previous photo I believe we’re actually seeing part of his preen gland between the tips of his bill.<\/p>\n
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As many birds do he was also rubbing preen oil on the scales of his feet and legs.<\/p>\n
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At times it looked like he was playing peekaboo with me. I just think this is a cute pose.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/belted-kingfisher-5250-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-5250-big-crop-ron-dudley\\"")
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During the preening process he’d often protect his eyes by closing his nictitating membranes. When this happens it can be aggravating to bird photographers but I find the membrane biologically and structurally interesting and this is such a clear, sharp shot I cropped tightly on it to reveal as much detail as possible.<\/p>\n
Here I estimate the membrane to be about 90% closed.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/belted-kingfisher-5329-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-5329-big-crop-ron-dudley.\\"")
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In this shot it’s completely closed.<\/p>\n
We also get a good look at one of his syndactyl feet typical of kingfishers and hornbills. .<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/belted-kingfisher-5425-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-5425-ron-dudley\\"")
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Toward the end of his preening session he turned on his perch and repeatedly shook his body, often with his wings hanging down. I wouldn’t really call it a rouse because his feathers were never fluffed up.<\/p>\n
Soon after this shot was taken he flew to another fishing perch a little further away and I’d already taken many hundreds of photos of him so I left the area to look for other birds.<\/p>\n
I’ll always wonder if leaving him was a mistake because it was very likely that he would eventually come back to this perch and closeup time with kingfishers is a rare commodity for bird photographers.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prior to this bird a week ago today I’d never had such a prolonged session with a preening kingfisher up close.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86910,"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":[2853,334,395],"tags":[2329,211,2330,515,1887,5218,255,5219,5220,1888],"class_list":["post-86905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-male","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-nictitating-membrane","tag-preen-gland","tag-preen-oil","tag-preening","tag-rubbing-preen-oil-on-feet","tag-syndactyl-feet","tag-uropygial-gland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/belted-kingfisher-5165-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mBH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86905","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=86905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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