My first kingfisher in flight shot

james thiel · Aug 7, 2005

After shooting pictures of the Blue Angels the past two days I decided to head for the osprey nest in Everett as my wife wanted to go to the farmers market. While she shopped I watched as the babies were leaving the nest. They all can fly now as Bill Dewey showed last week with the first flight pictures. They don't go very far but soon they will. As I was watching them I noticed some small flying objects way off in the distance. I pointed my camera and sure enough there were two kingfishers. I snapped a couple of pictures before they flew off. The pictures suffered since I had to crop so heavily but it is a start. These guys are next to impossible to get pictures of sitting still let alone in motion. I will take these as my starting point. These were all shot with the D2X and the sigma 500 4.5 lens and nikon 14EII tc,

And here are a couple of the baby osprey after flying out of the nest

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mike mac · Aug 7, 2005

Kingfishers are always a hard target nice job, bu that first osprey shot is simply fantastic almost has a painterly effect to it

Gale · Aug 7, 2005

Jim,
Very productive day. Nice shots and that Kingfisher looks good :>))

Yes that Kingfishers is tough and darn fast.

I have one way off in a tree.

PJohnP · Aug 7, 2005

James/Jim :

Nice catch of the kingfisher in the air. I've landed a few of them "hovering" at a distance, but, yes, you're absolutely right about how difficult they are to land. They seem to have preternatural ability to know when a camera is pointed at them, flitting off befire the photographer can depress the shutter or sneak up on them. Getting a full frame kingfisher shot in good light is a goal I'm still working on...

... and I'm in prime kingfisher country in central Wisconsin for two weeks, so it's going to be my chance to try (again). The only better location for shooting kingfishers I've visited is the Sabine Nature Reserve in west Louisiana where they're spaced out about every 100m along the road. But the weather last December in LA was nasty, rainy, and grey, so I didn't get all I wanted. I have some hopes for the evenings this week around the cranberry bogs.

Great work. I'll look forward to more from you.

John P.

Backdoctor · Aug 7, 2005

Nice series Jim, and getting a Kingfisher in flight is quite an accomplishment. I have one, not as good as yours.

I also have one pooping, Jim Fenton would appreciat that one.

Kevin Scott · Aug 8, 2005

What a coincidence, I just got my first flying kingfisher yesterday. They were pretty far away but took them anyway. They are both hard to shoot and hard to find. I always imagined them bigger. Good job on yours!

bfjr · Aug 8, 2005

Noop no KingFisher in my collection either, you got a good one there.
And that 1st Osprey shot is a Killer !!!

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My first kingfisher in flight shot

james thiel

mike mac

Gale

PJohnP

Backdoctor

Kevin Scott

bfjr Guest