{"id":97271,"date":"2021-04-18T05:15:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T11:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=97271"},"modified":"2021-04-18T05:30:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T11:30:10","slug":"female-belted-kingfisher-with-a-weather-loach-in-her-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/18\/female-belted-kingfisher-with-a-weather-loach-in-her-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Belted Kingfisher With A Weather Loach In Her Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

And evidence of the extreme violence she directed at the poor fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1600, 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

This female Belted Kingfisher I photographed at a local pond several years ago was having a very difficult time getting her squirming slippery prey under control. The long body eel-like body of the Weather Loach was thrashing about as it alternately wrapped around her bill in one direction and then in the other. Often the vision of one or both of her eyes was partially blocked which seemed to confuse her.<\/p>\n

Typical of kingfishers she beat the snot out of her prey by repeatedly slamming the fish against the branch she’s perched on in an attempt to stun or kill it. The wet slimy body of the loach left behind the two wet spots on the branch we see on either side of her.<\/p>\n

Apparently she was ‘right-handed’ because she slammed the loach against the branch on the right side of her many times but only a single time on her left side, thus the single, small wet spot we see on that side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1600, 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

I actually snapped her photo during the single time she slammed the fish against the branch on her left side but I didn’t have enough shutter speed to get the incredibly fast action sharp. I wish I’d been using different camera settings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em>\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

When the loach was finally stunned or dead and not squirming she performed a celebratory fish-toss just prior to gobbling it down (yes, she caught the fish on its way down). I was so surprised by this unexpected behavior I jerked my lens upward which resulted in an even softer photo but it’s good enough for documentary purposes. Barely.<\/p>\n

I posted this last photo five years ago but the other two are new to my blog.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

And evidence of the extreme violence she directed at the poor fish.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97272,"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":[5718,2329,2330,256,3197,311,320],"class_list":["post-97271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-beating-fish-against-branch","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-megaceryle-alcyon","tag-prey","tag-tossing-fish","tag-utah-2","tag-weather-loach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/belted-kingfisher-2785-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-piT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97271","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=97271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}