Kingfisher on the antenna

Earlier this afternoon I was standing at my kitchen window watching a group of pigeons flying about from the void deck to another, probably in search of food. Suddenly I heard some loud calls coming from high above. It sounds like the call of kingfishers but there isn’t a pond or pool near my block except in Bishan Park some 50 meters from my block. I thought I was mistaken because it is pretty strange to find kingfisher so high on an apartment block!

Somehow the call keeps ringing in my ear loud and clear, so I look up and scrutinised the rooftop of the opposite block. To my surprise, I saw a bird that looks like a kingfisher on the antenna. I quickly ran back to my room, fixed up my 100-400mm lens and a 1.4x tele-converter on my Canon 40D then run back to the kitchen windows. The whole process probably took me around 1 minute and luckily the bird is still there when I returned.

I aimed my lens at the bird but the AF is hunting like crazy so I quickly switch to manual focus and triggered off a few bursts hoping to grab a few shots in case the bird decided to fly away! Thankfully, the kingfisher decided to stay put much longer given me time to re-adjust my focus and to take more pictures!

I wanted to take more shots but my arms were getting tired holding the lens up high and my neighbour on the opposite must be thinking I’m a peeping tom pointing such a big lens in the direction of their house! I confident that I would find some usable shots out of the twenty something frames so I returned to my computer to view the pictures and select these few pictures to share with all of you.