White throated KF

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Like Egrets, Drongos , Herons and many other bird species even kingfishers are known to make the best of human activity in their search for easy prey. Egrets and herons follow the field workers while ploughing and reaping, drongos wait for fires to be set to the harvested fields and congregate in large numbers for this activity, kites follow the fishing boats and start diving in when the nets come up. With the summer closing in and the muddy pools almost dry the search for the larger snake heads (a kind of fish considered a delicacy here) starts with pool after pool being dried by the villagers. A basket like contraption is used to catch the fish which has an amazing ability to survive in the slush and so a lot of slush is also thrown out from the pools and along with it some small fish and insects. Kingfishers white throated, common and stork billed detect this activity and arrive to make the most of it. Caught this WB kingfisher during one such opportunistic communal feeding, the egrets and heron were around in good numbers as well.

500D, 55-250, 250mm, Ae, f7.1, ISO 400, SS 1/400. cropped image. Calicut outskirts

Rgds
Roopak

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Why will not this versatile Kingfisher appear in the scene? Stout bill and the catch (catfish) I like most in this image. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Mrudul Godbole]

It is amazing, how these birds observe human activities. Nice catch. Was it possible to move just a bit more to the right, that would have helped to get it more parallel to the sensor. Good details. Thanks for sharing.

[Sandip Mukherjee]

Very nice shot

[Shyamala Kumar]

Nice rich colours and composition.Thanks for sharing