Nemesis

Ah, the (Toronto) wildlife photographer's most hated, and devious foe: the Kingfisher.

Technically these are Belted Kingfishers, and I've discussed before how hard they can be to photograph. It can be done though. You just need a bit of patience - okay, a lot of patience - and a little dollop of humility, because I swear these birds actually laugh at photographers.


You can distinguish the male and female quite easily in the two pictures above since the male has the white chest and the female the band of red. If you see either a male or female, chances are its mate is in the area too.


I mentioned their mocking laughter and often you can hear them before you see them. To get an idea of what to listen for check this recording from the Cornell bird lab. If you keep a sharp ear out you can hear this sound in many Toronto parks and along the lakeshore too.


When they hover like this it likely means they've spotted a fish below and they're just about to dive. And yeah, it would be awesome to get a shot of a Kingfisher in mid-dive. If you want to try all I can say is: Good Luck.

The Ludicrously Hard to Photograph Kingfisher

If you go to most any sort of reasonably-sized pond in a Toronto park there will usually be a Kingfisher there in the summer, and where there's one there's usually two, because its mate won't be far. They aren't that small, but they're fast - really fast - and also incredibly quick, and they just don't like coming anywhere close to where people are. It's not uncommon that you can be somewhere near a pond and see the Kingfishers flying all over the place, only to find they instantly disappear when you advance to the pond's edge. It's very annoying.

How quick are Kingfishers? At a park in Vaughn (is that Toronto?--close enough) there's a blind beside a rather isolated pond, constructed so visitors won't disturb any nesting birds. This blind consists of a ten foot wooden wall with some viewing ports cut in, and it's right beside the pond. When I first saw it I guessed that the Kingfisher I could already hear would probably sometimes land on top of the blind to use it as a vantage point to look for fish below. They aren't called Kingfishers for nothing.

So - thinking I was smart - I took a position behind the blind, camera at the ready. Sure enough, not even ten minutes later, a Kingfisher lands on top of the wall, just six feet away from me. But before I could actually take a shot, boom! It saw me and was gone. So when I say these guys are quick I mean they're quick.

I've heard various tips on photographing Kingfishers that aren't entirely ethical, so I won't share any of those. I'll just say if you want to get a shot of one, especially flying, you have to keep at it, fire off as many shots as you can, and just basically hope you get lucky. That's all you have sometimes.

The Kingfisher below is a female based on the dash of red on its chest, Kingfishers being one of the few birds where the female is more colourful than the male. I shot it at Area 51.