This is a beautiful small bird that fishes in our tidal creek. I’m pretty good at spotting them, but I frequently hear them before I see them because of their distinctive ratcheting call. I’ve had some ok pictures with my 800mm, but nothing satisfying, so I put on a 1.4 teleconverter which gave me an 1120 mm focal length. It makes a big difference.
Males of a species are typically more colorful than the females. This is one of the rare exceptions. The male kingfishers don’t have the red-brownish coloring shown here on the female. Their spikey-looking head feathers are what I like. I’m fairly happy with these stills, but the pictures I really want are ones with the kingfisher flying and fishing. That’s why my shutter speed was as high as I have it in these photos. They’re small and very fast. I was hoping to catch them leave their perches. Not this time, but hopefully soon!