Kingfishers and Spur-winged Plovers

Juvenile spur-winged plovers seeking food from the parent birds.

One of the things I like about Summer is that it is easy to pick up the camera after dinner and still have enough light to be able to photograph the birds. Last night we went for a drive round Pauatahanui Inlet and ended up parked by the kingfisher tree. We were there maybe two minutes before we saw at least three kingfishers zooming past.

So I set up camp in the reeds with my trusty chair hoping I would blend a little with the surrounding environment, and sat in wait. The kingfishers will usually be back every ten minutes of so if they are in fishing mode and I had the time to wait. My ever suffering husband was tucked away in the car with a book so I had until the light faded at least!

My camera is great for most things but I am finding it a bit of a frustration with the kingfishers. It doesn't cope well with high ISO (really noisy) and it isn't all that fast on continual burst mode. Both of which I need to be able to capture a great shot of the kingfisher in flight. Doesn't stop me trying though, I would love to prove myself wrong.

While I was waiting for the kingfishers I was distracted by a huge amount of noise. Three juvenile spur-winged plovers were literally bulling their parents for food. The parent birds weren't having a bar of it and in the end flew off a distance. I guess they forgot they had taught the kids to follow them because the procession of juveniles followed them from one end of the beach to the other. They were very comical to watch.