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Tom Grey | profile | all galleries >> Birds - Trips >> Birds -- South Texas, Feb-March 2011 >> More Birds -- South Texas, Feb-March 2011 >> Ringed Kingfisher teases photographer, March 2011 tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Ringed Kingfisher teases photographer, March 2011

Like many birders and bird photographers, I keep lists, and my main list is of birds I've photographed in North America, a region conventionally defined for avian purposes as the continental U.S. and Canada. On the morning of March 2, 2011 I was on the beach on the Texas side of the Rio Grande at Salineno when I saw a Ringed Kingfisher, a bird I hadn't photographed before, one which is common in northern Mexico but is found in the U.S. only along the lower Rio Grande. The bird was perched on a partly submerged snag in the river, apparently nearer to the Mexican than to the U.S. side, and I got a distant bad photo of it there (#1). It took off, and I got another bad photo as it flew upriver apparently right in the middle of the stream (#2). After perching far away on the Mexican side, it then raised my hopes by flying back toward me and perching on the U.S. side, close enough for me to have a chance at a good photo. I quickly took photo #3, better than the others, but with the bird obscured by branches and angled away from me. As I moved get a better angle, the bird flew to another spot, which was both jurisdictionally ambiguous and too distant for a good picture, where I captured a final photo (#4) similar to #1 and about as bad. Having successfully teased one bird photographer, the bird then flew away out of sight upriver; this remains my only contact with a Ringed Kingfisher.
Ringed Kingfisher #1
Ringed Kingfisher #1
Ringed Kingfisher #2
Ringed Kingfisher #2
Ringed Kingfisher #3
Ringed Kingfisher #3
Ringed Kingfisher #4
Ringed Kingfisher #4