Pied Kingfishers

I currently work on Victory Base Complex near Baghdad, Iraq. I spend some of my off time photographing birds, flowers and other scenes of nature in the local area. Being restricted to the base limits the subject matter but the base does offer bodies of water which attracts migrating birds and the local varieties providing some subjects for my camera. I shoot with a Nikon D100, Nikon 70-300mm lens and occasionally with my trusted old Nikon 500mm mirror lens. As a reference I use a Princeton Field Guide, Birds of the Middle East, by Porter, Christensen and Schiermacker-Hansen.

The birds seen here are Pied Kingfishers one of which caught a fish during the early evening. The kingfisher will hover over water patiently waiting for a glimpse of a fish and then dive straight into the water hopefully surfacing with a meal. One kingfisher that made a successful catch watches another land on the branch seeking a share of the catch. After the two stare at each other for awhile, the second kingfisher flies away empty handed.
















The next sequence shows the kingfisher preparing to swallow the fish whole. After beating the fish's head against the branch a few times the bird positions the fish head first into its beak and within a minute swallows the entire fish leaving just a bit of tail still seen in its beak.