The Gift

[dennis greenwood]

A wild and free male kingfisher from my local river ,this is what they call the gift were the male when courting the female passes a freshly caught fish ,I have been watching this site for a number of years and this shot was just a lucky result on a day were I just set up to observe , when the male landed is pose with the fish just alerted me in something different was going to happen, and as you can see in the background the female is coming in to accept the gift ,I do have shots of the male passing the fish and the female accepting ,this pair did bond but lost the brood three weeks in to feeding chicks were the river flooded the nest after 24 hrs of heavy rain ...canon 1d mkiv 300mm at f4 1/320 sec iso 800 -1/3ev 154137

[John Robinson]

Hi Den.
Nice one ! Funny how they can dive for these bullheads in 3 inches of water !!.
Good stuff
John

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Dennis,
Love the story being told. A beautiful bird with nice details.
Allen

[Ian Wilson]

Great capture Dennis, just wish the female was a little closer and 'in the clear'. I look forward to seeing more from this session. Sorry about the flood, these birds are so precious. Regards, Ian.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome bird, great story and the prey item adds lot of interest. Waiting to see more from this in future.

[Karl Egressy]

Good story and nice image to boot.

[Bill Dix]

Good capture to go with the story. Nicely lit and detailed. Without the story, the oof bird wouldn't work for me here, but it makes sense with the narrative.

[stuart wanuck]

ditto great caspture

[adrian dancy]

All that work then a flood....so sad:(
You have made a very decent capture here. Nice colour and sharpness.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Bummer about the nest. It's nice to have beautiful documentation on it, but even better when the nest is successful. I like the colours and the behaviour described...and I agree with Ian in regards the incoming female.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and the fish but the OOF birds are a bit too distracting IMO. TFS

[dennis greenwood]

Hi Arash,the OOF female in the background is needed in the telling of the story , I have plenty of shots of the bird alone with bullhead fish but this is more of a behavioural shot
I like the pose and the fish but the OOF birds are a bit too distracting IMO. TFS

[dennis greenwood]

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8781/16722684954_857a527786_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/rtJ8Co)The Gift Kingfishers may 2nd 2015 (1 of 1) (https://flic.kr/p/rtJ8Co) by dennis greenwood (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisgreenwood/), on Flickr