Photographing Common Kingfishers
Common Kingfishers are the only ones we get in the UK, and compared to many of our other birds they are very colourful. Many people are thrilled to see one - even if its just a flash of blue zooming past low over water.
Finding and photographing kingfishers is surprisingly easy
Many lakes and rivers in the UK have them. They like slow flowing water or still water and overhanging branches they can dive from. They can dive from less than a metre up, I’ve seen them dive from 5 metres. They have a sort of postal round of places where they have good fishing success. Since they need to eat about 60% of their weight in fish every day, they perch on these often. If you find a good perch look for a place with their white poop on - this will be a regular spot. When they arrive keep still and see if you can get a focus on them. As they keep very still whilst looking don’t worry about fast shutter speeds - go a slow as you dare and drop the ISO down as low as you can to get the colours.
Kingfishers Diving & Flying
How do you know a kingfisher is going to fly or dive? There are a few signs. If flying they often poop just before flying off. If diving they will be bobbing their heads to get a good fix on the fish. When flying and especially if there is another Kingfisher in the area, they will make a loud peeping noise so look out for that blue flash! To get them in flight you need high speed shutter of around 1/2000th and up. For a good diving shot its best to have strong sunlight on them so you can use higher speeds and it makes the splash look good! For a good chance of a diving shot see if you can get one washing - they’ll dive in and out of the water several times in succession allowing you to line up. The pre-capture stuff on some newer cameras is handy here but remember they are going to move so unless you just want the take off you’ll need to move the camera. Video can work really well and you can extract some lovely still frames from 4K and up resolution.