Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher Females

I was doing a landscape shot of the pond from the West end that morning.  I have seen Belted Kingfishers before.  They come in and land on the rail as shown above.  I must have been standing partly behind a bush and did not frighten them off.  I left the landscape setup and grabbed my monopod and long lens, Sigma 50 - 500 mm, f/4 - f/6.3.  I made the shot below.

Belted Kingfisher Adult Females

There were two, both females, and they seemed to be competing for space, see top shot.

Kingfishers are exceedingly flighty.  A shot of one is a trophy for a photographer.  This is not the lighting I would have chosen but they gave me no choice.  They have a "ratcheting" call which is quite distinctive.  Wikipedia has a recording of its call on the Belted Kingfisher page.  Scroll down about 3/4 of the way.

I made many shots at 500 mm.  I then decided to try for 1000 mm by adding my 2x converter.  I wanted to get to the tripod for more stability also.

Kingfisher Setup

  I already had the long lens mounted on the monopod and a tripod bracket mounted on the camera.  I decided to place the tripod under the camera as shown.  It was not an exceedingly stable setup.  The lens would no longer auto focus, f/11, so I was left to manual focus.  The birds were active so focusing was difficult.  The shot at the top was the best of the shots using this setup. 

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