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, or across a harbour like in TKO.
The other day i saw 5 different kingfishers, with 3 species, in Mai Po, but I got one distant picture of Whitebreasted on a branch. But sometimes, well once so far in my photographic "life", you get lucky, and i took the portrait above 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.
