THE COMMON KINGFISHER - Despite it's name, I do not see these very often, and then it is a delight to see their brilliant flash of blue, as they shoot down a river, across a harbour, or settle on a post in a pond.
Occasionally, like these images show that I took just last week, it hovers over a pond, and I have a big enough lens to catch the action.
This is actual size in the frame. Very difficult to keep focus as he kept moving.... the following c.30 fames were shot in sequence over about 2 seconds...
But sometimes you get lucky, and i took the portrait above and below from 8m away as it simply stayed put whilst i got out my tripod and set up my biggest lens (all the while muttering "please don't move....plllllllleeeeeeeeeeese").
This is about a 30% crop of the original image. They are small birds!
I was with my wife, Sally, and we had just arrived near the visitor centre in Mai Po when I spotted its electric blue feathers perched on a branch next to the pond. We were actually discussing the ID of a duck, when I saw him behind us. Then I went back to my trolley and set up the camera and tripod....
Here you can see the lovely stripe of electric blue feathers, that so often i just see shooting off into the distance.
