Saturday, June 23, 2012

Hovering Kingfisher


I have been fooled more than once by the size of a kingfisher.  When I first spotted this one hovering up river, for a split second I thought it was the much larger osprey at a greater distance than a kingfisher that was closer.  It is the same illusion as seeing a gnat out of the corner of your eye which is just a few inches away and thinking you are seeing a large bird way off in the distance that appears as a small dot in the sky.  But, despite that, kingfishers are also larger than you might think - or at least with their very deep wing beats they appear to be quite large.  I hardly ever have seen one hover like this.  Most of the time they will sit on a branch along the shore and spot fish.  I think, in this case, the kingfisher saw a fish and was trying to evaluate whether he could handle it. I believe it decided it was too large and moved on.

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