I use Flickr (UPDATE, I no longer use Flickr due to their price increases) to showcase my photos and don’t very often interact on the social side of it. However, this year I added this photo of Princessa, our resident Kingfisher to the “Your Best Shot 2017” just for fun and of course for more exposure.
Finally, A Substantial Deluge Of Rain
Last night we finally had the rain that was promised and then some more to make sure.
It rained in almost Ark-building proportions. A persistent, heavy downpour for many hours. Although not enough to get the river flowing, it has had a very welcome change to the riverbed.
As you can see, Princessas´s (our resident Kingfisher) territory has been filled. The two water pools that she has been fishing in has turned into one very large pool. You can see the perch in the centre of the photo, the brown-coloured water shows the outline of the existing pool that was drying up. This is just dust that has washed in and will settle very quickly.
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Is There More Than One Kingfisher At The River Pool?
I just happened to look at the image I captured on the Bushnell NatureView tonight and noticed something…….
Take a look at these 2 images, what do you see differently?
Apart from the quality differences, there seems to be something very obvious, I don’t think they are the same Kingfisher.
The shot on the left from the Bushnell NatureView seems to clearly show a red lower beak whereas the shot on the right only has a slight colouring as I established this is a young female who’s beak is yet to turn red.
Kingfishers are very territorial so I suspect these photos are of mother and daughter. Only time will tell as I spend more time in the hide.
I’ll keep you updated.
One More Kingfisher Photo From Yesterday
Ok, one more to share from the morning spent yesterday with this gorgeous lady.
More to come soon once my neck and back has stopped aching from squeezing into the hide!
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Photos Of The Kingfisher At The River Pool
This morning, I was up at sunrise, drank a coffee, took the dog for a walk, had breakfast and then headed down to the Kingfisher Hide I built yesterday. Portuguese for Kingfisher is Guarda-rios, but translates to River Ranger/Guard.
I approached slowly and quietly and the perch was not empty, the Kingfisher was already there. I stopped, it stopped, we stared at each other for what felt like an hour but was probably more like 5 seconds before it flew away. I made sure that it had cleared the area totally before approaching the hide. I didn’t want to scare it away for good.
I squeezed into the hide and set myself up for a long wait. The long wait wasn’t needed, within about 5 minutes the Kingfisher was back but it looked a little confused, it knew something had changed and it flew to the next river pool about 25 metres away. I sat and watched it dive into the water catching small fish and eating them. At this moment, I really couldn’t care if it didn’t come to the perch, I was happy enough just sitting there watching it. However, soon enough it came back to the perch and didn’t seem bothered of my presence, although I was well hidden. It was a very still morning, not even a breeze so my next concern was the noise of the shutter, would it scare it. The D810 was in “quiet” mode which tries to limit the noise of the shutter, I fired off a shot, it didn’t disturb the bird at all.
I spent the next hour sat there watching it dive, sometimes successful, sometimes not. It did have a good feed. I waited until breakfast was over and it flew away before leaving. I was using my 300mm f/2.8 lens fitted with a 1.7 teleconverter as I still await the return of my 500mm f/4 from repair. I’m pretty happy with the quality of the shots considering, but looking forward to the return of my 500mm f/4. The only problem I see is getting into the hide with the size of the 500mm f/4. My next goal is to capture a usable shot of the Kingfisher with a fish in its mouth, I did get some, but not good enough.
At first, I thought this was a Male Kingfisher due to the lack of orange lower beak. However, on closer look, I think this is a juvenile Female as there is a little colour appearing underneath.
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Kingfisher Hide At The River Pool
This morning, I put together a simple frame to create a temporary hide at the Kingfisher Perch.
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