yesterday<\/a><\/span><\/span> as he was being attacked by another kingfisher.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8134-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8134-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
By now the kingfisher knew the swallow couldn’t be trusted so once again he turned on his perch to keep an eye on it.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8140-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8140-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
And once again the swallow came at the kingfisher with a vengeance. Here we can see part of the swallow’s right wing at the top edge of the frame. This is the only shot I got that included any part of the swallow during any of the attacks.<\/p>\n
Notice the shadow on the out of focus branch beneath the kingfishers right wing. I believe that’s the shadow of the swallow because there’s no shadow there in any of my other photos.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8141-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8141-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
In the next shot in the burst the kingfisher had closed both nictitating membranes in an effort to protect his eyes in the event that the speedy little feathered projectile misjudged its approach and came in too close. I believe he closed his membranes every time the swallow was closest to him because I have several other shots with them closed while the swallow was almost directly overhead.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8156-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8156-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
The kingfisher turned on his perch to watch his back again, for good reason. Here’s the beginning of his reaction to the swallow’s fourth attack.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8160-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8160-ron-dudley.\\"")
<\/p>\n
And this is its conclusion as the swallow passed overhead.<\/p>\n
Would the swallow attack a fifth time? Damned right he would.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8168-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8168-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Here the kingfisher is still turning on his perch to guard against another possible attack from behind, as evidenced by his raised left foot during the turn.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8178-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8178-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
And this is the kingfisher’s defensive posture in reaction to attack #5.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8199-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"belted-kingfisher-8199-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Eventually he decided that discretion is the better part of valor so he got the hell out of Dodge. For this shot I wish I hadn’t been quite so close to the bird so I’d have more room in the frame on the right and the kingfisher would likely have been sharper because I really like that fancy footwork with those stubby little legs.<\/p>\n
I know, I know. I’ve been posting a lot of kingfisher photos lately, probably too many. But for me kingfishers are being cooperative right now so I have to strike while the iron is hot.<\/p>\n
It won’t last long, after all they’re kingfishers…<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lately I’ve been on a roll when it comes to photos of birds being attacked by other birds. Yesterday morning in the mountains the victim was once again a kingfisher but this time the image quality is very good.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87186,"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":[2853,334,394],"tags":[5229,2329,5230,211,2330,515,311,318],"class_list":["post-87184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","tag-barn-swallow-attacking-kingfisher","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-dive-bomb","tag-male","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-nictitating-membrane","tag-utah-2","tag-wasatch-mountains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/belted-kingfisher-8116-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mGc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87184","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=87184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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