FINALLY! I photograph Kingfishers
It is day 2 of my Hampshire photo trip to the Otterbourne Hides with Carl Thomas, and today, is very exciting as it is Kingfisher (and harvest mice) day!!!
Now before we get into it, full transparency, this is a bated hide, so while the kingfishers are wild, there is food out for them, to encourage them to the hide. Right, with that out of the way, let’s get into it.
We arrived on site at 07:30 am and after a quick brief, headed down to the hides. There are 3 options here, with 3 seats in the left and right hides, and room for a solo tog in the centre hide. We split into threes (Carl was in the centre hide) and got set up. The hides are equipped with gimbal heads which was great to use for the first time as well as comfy seats.
Team left hand hide!
We didn’t have to wait too long before we had our first encounter with the kingfisher, according to my exif data, my first image was at 07:50! I got some portraits first, and then set up to attempt some diving shots.
Being able to lock the camera off on the gimbal was ideal, and I set my lens to manual focus so that I had the best chance of getting some images, to start with, I focused on the perch, hoping that that would be a good spot. The kingfisher did its first dive of the day and whilst I was fast enough to take the images, the dive spot, was much further forward than the perch, so unfortunately, they were out of focus. I did get some nice images of the kingfisher on the perch after diving and gobbling down his catch.
Without time to reset my focus, the kingfisher dove once more, and again my images were out of focus on the dive, but I was able to get some nice close up portraits (I put my camera into APS-C mode for this as I am using the 70-200 GM ii with the 2X teleconverter). And that was our first encounter with the kingfisher over, and we were left to wait, and hope that he would come back for more food.
In the meantime, we did have a visit from a Grey Wagtail, which was lovely to watch as it caught the flying insects above the water, and I was able to get a nice reflection image as well which I LOVE (hopefully KF will land here later…)
After about 30 minutes, the kingfisher was back, and perched in a tree off to our right, where I was able to get a nice portrait, before he dove after some more fish. I was then able to reset my focus point, this time onto the dive spot and got it locked it in, this time when the kingfisher dove, I was ready and managed to get my first in focus diving shots!
He was there for a few dives, and I managed to get another sequence, which when editing, I used the power of Photoshop to remove the bowl, and I am really happy with the results that I got.
Off he went then for another 30–40 minutes, before arriving back on the perch above the dive spot, where I captured another dive, this time with him in full bullet mode! I am so happy with the images I got, and it was only 11:30!
I then nipped out for a spot of food, having missed breakfast to get here early. Once back in the hide, it was back to the kingfisher action. As I was happy with my dive shots, I tried to focus more on different compositions for portraits.
Later in the afternoon, it was time to take a bit of a break from the kingfishers and photograph some harvest mice. I had always wondered how the images I had seen online had been made, and today I got to witness that and take my own images. The mice are bred by the team at Otterbourne hides and are used to being handled and photographed. Pete brought with him, an array of plant life for the mice to sit on and climb, so we could get a variety of images. They are placed in a high sided box, so that the mice cannot escape and by moving around each other and taking it in turns, we were able to take our images. The mice are so small, and it was amazing to be able to see them, the breeze made things a little bit challenging as it wafted the foliage around a bit. For all of my Mice images, I was using the 70-200 GM ii lens for a shallower depth of field, however, I think I went a bit too wide on some and should have maybe stopped down a bit, as on some my focal plane is very tiny.
Once we had done playing with the mice, it was back to the hide for the final few hours. Again, I got some nice diving shots, this time in landscape orientation, and then I called it a day about 15:30, as I had a 4 hour drive to get home.
At the end of the day, I had had an absolutely amazing time here at the Otterbourne Hides and I have come home with many, many, images that I am really proud of. I absolutely love my adorable harvest mice images, and to be able to see and get some dive shots of the kingfisher was the icing on the cake.
If you are new to wildlife photography, like I am, then spending some time at venues like Otterbourne hides and with Carl Thomas are an excellent way to get some encounters that you might not necessarily be able to get on your own and meet some like-minded photographers as well.