Swinging piper – Pied Kingfisher(Ceryle rudis)

There are some birds that are present everywhere but are still not easy to photograph. The pied kingfisher is one such species. I have been coveting a close-up of this bird since the time I took up birding couple of years ago. They are visible across most of the waterbodies in and around Karnataka and their hovering behaviour above the surface of the water, before diving in for a kill, almost renders them stationary. Both these facts should make them easy targets to shoot but believe me its been a difficult ask over the years.

Hence with a lot of glee and happiness I clicked this bird from a boat while it was busy preening itself after a couple of dives into the water. In some sense this picture brought curtains on a two day trip to the wonderful resort of Orange County at Kabini. What made it even more memorable was the fact that both my sons were with me on this boat ride. They have both complained in the past that I leave them behind when I go on my birding trips. Now I have something to remind them to the contrary 🙂 The boat ride itself was  interesting as it took us through waters infested with crocodiles. The crocs do not usually attack the boats but huge crocodiles are after all huge crocodiles ! My younger son had some reservations before we set out into the water but by the end of it all, he was more excited than I was. The crocodiles and the birds were so close that even with his point and shoot camera, my six year old had some memorable photos to showcase.

Coming back to the Pied Kingfisher, they are apparently the third most common kingfishers in the world. The males of the species have a double band across the breast while females have a single gorget, that is often broken in the middle. That would make this one a male of the species. With this out of the way, my next goal is to get the stork billed kingfisher. Again a reasonably common bird but a difficult one to frame nevertheless.