Kingfishers are relatively common in the UK but are often only seen as a flash of blue whizzing down the river.
Kingfishers are territorial and will patrol a relatively small area pausing as they go to look for fish. The two sequences on this page were taken a couple of weeks apart at Marsh Lock in Henley-on-Thames.
I noticed the kingfishers would do a circuit and return to fishing points about once an hour. They like to stand on posts or branches about a metre or so above the water. I saw the first bird take three fish in quick succession.
The photos were taken with a Sony A1 with a 400GM lens + 2x teleconverter. The first sequence is 1/2500, f5.6. I set ISO to auto and it was 6400.
I spotted this second kingfisher a couple of weeks later. The bird was a lot further from me so this is a very heavy crop. I saw the kingfisher come to land in the middle of a large bushy tree and managed to get focus. I freely admit I didn’t even notice it had the fish until I got home edited the photos. The fish is nearly as large a the bird!
