PracticalPhotograPhy.com 33
I
f youweretocomPilealistof themost
popularbirdsin theuKtophotograph,kingfisherswould
be high on it. they may only be small birds, but their
striking iridescent blue and orange plumage makes them
among the most colourful of our native birds. if you sit
quietly by the side of a stream or river, you may be lucky
to hear the shrill call of a kingfisher as it flies low and fast past
you, before perching on a tree branch from where it will fish.
a few summers ago, i spent the best part of a month in a
small canvas hide photographing
a kingfisher on a river near to my
home. i’d originally set up the hide
to photograph a small colony of
sand martins that nested in the
sandy bank of the river. while
i was concealed in the hide one
day, i heard and felt something
la nd on top of it. as i looked outof
the side window, i saw a kingfisherfly away,thendiveintothe
ri ver and emerge with a fish beforedisappearingdownstream.
wit h the bird down-river, i quicklyfounda branchthati set
up as a perch overhanging the water before retreating back
into the hide to wait. a short time later, the kingfisher was
back, and it perched on the branch before diving, once again,
into the river for fish.
i couldn’t believe how lucky i was to have found this
kingfisher, or rather for it to have found me. this was a very
quiet and unspoilt stretch of the river, on private land that the
local landowner had kindly given me their permission to use.
early each morning i would drive my car onto the land and park
it behind a tree overlooking the river, less than 50 metres from
where the hide was set up. Not often is a location this perfect
and so easily accessible, and i had it all to myself.
over the followingweeks,as wellas photographing the sand
martins,i spentmanylonghoursin my hidewaiting, watching
and capturing on camera the female kingfisher whose territory
had been made on this stretch of the river. over these weeks
i didn’t see a male kingfisher, but given the number of fish the
female caught, she was almost certainly feeding her young.
i also heard and saw several hobbies, which were likely to
be hunting the sand martins. one afternoon i watched,
mesmerised, as a hobby chased the kingfisher down the river,
and it made me wonder if her mate
had perhaps been taken by one of
the hobbies.
at first, i photographed the
kingfisher from a distance using
my 600mm lens with a 1.4x or 1.7x
teleconverter attached. as she
became accustomed to the presence
of my hide, i was able to move closer
towhereshewouldperchand to use my smaller 200-400mm
lens.whilethekingfisherwas unperturbed by my presence,
shewouldattimesstaredirectly into my lens. over the
weeks i spent there, i was able to capture shots of her in
the environment, close-up portraits on various perches that
i erected to overhang the river, and behavioural images
including her fishing. i’m hoping to return to the riverbank
later this year, when maybe one of the kingfisher’s young will
now have claimed her territory.
i spent long hours
in my hide waiting
for the kingfisher
to come back
andrew mason
Adventures of A wIldlIfe photogrApher the fIsher kIng
Andrew Mason is a lawyer turned wildlife and landscape
photographer based in Staffordshire. He has been
published worldwide and his clients include theRSPB
and The Wildlife Trusts. andrewmasonphoto.com
