A Red Kite goes fishing!

Am very excited to have caught these, so wrote a little story to go with them!

Date: Monday 6th June

Location: Buckinghamshire

Equipment Used: Pentax K-5 Camera
Pentax F* 250-600mm Lens
Gitzo GT5541 Tripod
Wimberley BH-200 Gimbal Head


Inspired by a photo of a heron catching a coot chick seen on the Pentax User forum the previous week, I decided that I wanted to start a project and go out to try and photograph some herons feeding, hoping eventually to catch a similar event.

Even though the weather was not that kind that weekend, my wife and I still decided to go out and scout some locations and found a great spot on our 2nd attempt. We even bumped into a local gentleman out for a walk who had a great knowledge of the local wildlife and even pointed out their favourite perches and fishing locations!

Even though we had the kit with us, as it was lightly raining and overcast we decided to leave and come back another day, especially as by now we had seen a heron land on one of the previously pointed out perches.

The very next day the weather forecast showed that we were actually expecting sunshine in the early evening so I packed up all the kit, picked up my wife from work and off we went to our new location. After a quick walk around the area and through the meadow (the wife likes her flower photography so was looking around!) the sun burst out, so off I went to set up in front of the heron.

Once setup and shooting the heron staring at me, preening, stretching etc. another heron landed, so was very hopeful that I may get some action! After 15 minutes or so had past I took a few steps away from the camera as it was apparent that they were just resting and decided to just observe their behaviour for a while. Then I saw the kite.

Now at this point I must mention that having previously spent a lot of time on my red kite project a couple of months previously and having shot over 1,000 frames of them I tend not to bother pointing the camera at them anymore, preferring just to watch them instead.

Having just spotted this kite over my left shoulder after I stepped away from the camera I initially thought nothing of it until I realised he was rapidly dropping altitude. ‘****!’ I said to myself and ran at the camera and quickly tried to get the kite in the frame as it was pointed at the heron!

As my previous target was almost stationary my camera was setup up using selective focus points only. The point selected was in the top right hand side of the centre group, the reason for this was that I was aiming to get the herons eyes in focusing whilst keeping him in the traditional ‘rules of thirds.’

Instinctively, as I grabbed the camera I knew that the heron was in the frame with the lens set at 600mm and quickly pulled the zoom back to the 250mm setting knowing it would be easier to find the kite and hopefully easier to focus too. This is one unique lens that I was very lucky to acquire and is perfect for nature photography as the zoom range makes it very versatile.

Initially I forgot that the focus point was set to the top right and not even on continuous! As I tried to get the kite in the centre of the frame I fired off a couple of shots as it was flying lower over the lake and noticed it was focussing on the bushes behind, ‘****!’ I said to myself again as I quickly tried to recompose and refocus on the kite and luckily in the very next second I managed 3 shots in focus of the kite flying away with the fish clearly seen in it’s claws!

As you can imagine the very first thing I did when I got home was to eagerly grab the laptop to check out the photos. Unfortunately the first 2 shots were out of focus as mentioned but the other 3 were fairly well focussed. As my settings were previously set for a heron basking in sunlight my shutter speeds were a lot lower with the darker background but the advantage of this is that the wings are blurred which gives a nice effect of movement in the shots.

Looking back at the events now in hindsight I realised that I had been very, very lucky. If I hadn’t stepped back from the camera at that moment I wouldn’t have even seen it happen right under my nose! Hopefully though it won’t be a once in a lifetime shot as now that I know how and where he does it I will be going back on a regular basis. If luck is on my side I may have another story to tell one day.

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4a. Closer crop of 4th shot




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Wonderful sequence, Danny!

Enjoy the fruits of the success which undoubtedly is coming your way!




Roger.

Brilliant ! And a great story to go with it too !

Super stuff Danny. Looking forward to hearing the next episode.

Although I'm not a flower/bird show type person I have to admit I would be goign back trying to get as many cool shots of this as possible

Very well caught, clearly shows the fish

Well done Danny!

Thanks for posting the whole sequence after your 'whetter'! Just a fabulous catch (pun intended :blush

Thanks very much guys, as you can expect I'm very excited about this, so...


Episode 2

Date: Tuesday 7th June

With over eagerness becoming unbearable we went straight back after work even though it was lightly raining, hoping that the sun would come out when we got there. Luckily enough as I was setting up at the other side of the lake from the previous evening the clouds broke and we got some early evening sunshine!

The spot I had chosen this time was directly in front of the previous evenings ‘flight path’, hoping to get a head on shot should we see our intrepid kite again. It didn’t take long before we saw him in the distance coming our way flanked by what looked like a crow.

As it becoming more likely that he was going to fish I started tracking him in the viewfinder keeping focus on him as he circled the edge of the lake. Then it went a bit wrong for me as I had not chosen my spot well! Even though I was probably in the least likely area to be spotted in, all the overhanging branches above and to my right completely blocked my view of what happened next.

My wife, Fiona, was stood behind me and to my left hoping to see this happen as she had missed it the previous evening whilst taking advantage of the sunlight to shoot some damselflies. She told me that even though the kite was being bombarded by another bird, possibly a crow he took a near vertical dive very close to the trees in the corner then shot out at almost 90 degrees to swoop and grab a fish.

As I had lost sight and focus of the kite, when I did eventually see him and took the shot it was out of focus, however the bank behind him looks good! It was unfortunate and if I get the chance tonight I will get a better location so I can track him all the way round!

The good news is that I did get a shot from in front, as poor as it is, and also a shot as he was flying away which shows that he had turned the fish around to face forwards for better aerodynamics.

Now that I’m aware he is a creature of habit we will be going back as often as we can to try and get ‘the shot’. Will be updating this thread as and when I have some news to share so stay tuned!


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And there are those that think 'Springwatch' is gripping. This is really compulsive viewing. Looking forward to the next instalment. Fingers (and everything else :shock crossed for you .

It's crazy Tim, I've even got butterflies in my stomach hoping for sunshine this evening!

I only realised about an hour ago that Springwatch was back on the telly.
I've missed 6 episodes... iPlayer's going to be busy

Bill Oddy was on Radio 2 about an hour ago on about that boring Robin that hasn't even got a red breast. He did mention that Twitchers have no interest in pigeons or Red Kites. Red Kites because they don't regard them as real because they have been introduced by man?

A truly brilliant story..Lets hope you have more sightings and photos. Thanks very much for sharing..

Thanks Stuart!

Unfortunately, no episode 3 yet, even though I went yesterday morning as well as the evening. Spotted him circling the lake on both occasions, but no fishing . This morning was a complete no show!

Excellent set Danny

Just to record this kind of behaviour is excellent - never mind the shots that are out of focus have you thought of contacting Springwatch or maybe even the slomo guys - I reckon there is more to come from the 'fishing kite'

Now I am no expert but I believe that it is the rare behaviour captured that is often the key to a successful image - as you collect more there may even be some cash in it for you but don't trust my non expert opinion

As for the comments above about 'twitchers' I would usually assume that Bill Odie knows far more than me - in fact that cannot be disputed, however, my understanding or red kites was that they were a native species wiped out by man and then reintroduced once the error of our ways had been realised - anyone one know more about this as I would be interested to know the truth to set my knowledge straight