Belted Kingfisher

I recently found a mating pair of kingfishers and their den. After spending 3 consecutive days trying to get a shot of their namesake, I never witnessed, heard, nor captured them fishing.

Got rained out today. Will keep trying. In the meantime, here's some of what I got so far. For the in-flight shots, the background can be so distracting that I had to keep changing the shutter speeds to blur it out to make it less conspicuous. The three BIF's here represent 1/350s, 1/750s, and 1/1500s.

I really like these. Great images as usual. Question... Are their head feathers always standing up when they are not in flight?

Nice shots of a bird that I understand is extremely difficult. - TF

Wow, great shots, Loupey!!!

Can't pick a fave, but I really like the one of the birds in flight while panning the camera.

The last one with the reflection is gorgeous.

Loupey, another great set mate, are you panning with those flightshots ?

Simply awesome!!!!

Thanks everyone!

SARtech - they can flatten out those feathers if they feel threatened. But usually they are upright.

Martin - I always pan with the subject regardless of the species or shutter speed. But the effect becomes noticeable (with these kingfishers) when I start hitting shutter speeds of 1/500s and 1/350s.

I guess you have to to an extent with all flight shots but I like the effect the low shutter speed gives to the background. I shall try dropping the speed down a little myself this weekend although I bet this makes it more difficult eh ?

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Originally Posted by Martin Brazil

I guess you have to to an extent with all flight shots but I like the effect the low shutter speed gives to the background. I shall try dropping the speed down a little myself this weekend although I bet this makes it more difficult eh ?

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Yes, whenever the shutter speed goes slower, the difficulty goes higher.

A few more from around the same time. We've had some extremely heavy rains since then and I'm afraid that the nest may have been washed away. Will check next week.

Awesome images my friend! Definately get back there for more images!