My first day in the Rio Grande Valley was uncharacteristically completely overcast with intermittent rain. Not great weather for photographing birds…and especially limiting for using a Point and Shoot with a spotting scope. High ISO performance has improved on the P&S in the past year, but the light levels at Estero Llano Grande State Park were so low that IS0 800 was just barely getting the job done.

Despite that, I was delighted to find a cooperative Green Kingfisher working one of the deep ditches along the trails at Estero Llano Grande. The Green Kingfisher is my co-favorite bird, along with the American Kestrel. There is something about the tiny Green Kingfisher that just tickles my fancy. So small. So unlikely from an aerodynamic standpoint (how does it propel that massive beak through the air in level flight?). So green. Especially the male, with its contrasting rufous breast band. And it is so active. It perches about 3-4 feet over the water and waits…but its attention span is as small as it is. If nothing shows in the water, it is off to another perch within moments. It flies low, direct, and very fast…like a winged dart with that long sharp beak. Generally you can not get very close either. It seems particularly sensitive to human presence.

Shooting with the Canon SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope at equivalent fields of view of between 1600mm and 3500mm, even pushing the ISO to 800 was only giving me exposures in the 1/40th second range…far too slow for critically sharp images at those magnifications. I did not have high hopes for the results, but I got a few keepers…especially considering the bird. And, who knows, this may be my only Green Kingfisher for this trip to the Valley, so I have to celebrate it.

Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. And I had to do some work with the selective saturation tool to eliminate blue shadow lines where the white of the neck meets the green on either side.