Everyone loves to watch these little guys fish.
The Kingfisher either perches from a branch above the water until he spies a meal or he hovers in the air and then takes the dive. Always fun to watch! Here is the hover & dive method in stop motion.
That time he came up empty but managed to scoop up what looks like a crawdad on his way out of the pond.
However, they generally are successful. Following are a few pictures of other more successful fishing expeditions. This is a female as you can see from the brown on her chest.
I was told that part of the mating ritual is that he brings her fish. I saw many occasions (here are 3 such moments) where he came begging but she wasn’t interested in sharing. Pretty amusing to watch! I’m pretty sure this is the same pair in each of these sequences.
~ just swallowed it down right in front of him ~
She’s happily perched, fish in mouth, when he arrives. Off she goes to eat in peace.
“Look what I’ve got – with no help from you!”
“Aren’t you supposed to feed that to me?”
It’s such a temptation to anthropomorphize!
When the fish is too big or has barbs, they have to work hard to tenderize it. Thwacking it against the tree limb seems to work just fine. In stop-motion you can watch it till it goes down the proverbial hatch – and note the blood on branch.
After a dive, especially an unsuccessful one, they often shake the water off before taking the next dive. Here is one example.
Just for fun at the end of this post, I’m including 2 photos for size comparison since, if you haven’t seen these birds, you might be surprised to see their diminutive size!
In the same shot with a Great Blue Heron (all the way at the bottom)
In the same tree with a tree swallow
