White-Throated Kingfisher through Yellow Flowers |
This is the White-Throated Kingfisher, one of the three kingfisher varieties in Israel. He has actually been observed eating anything that moves, and not only fish. Insects, frogs, small snakes, and even smaller birds do not escape him. His beak is very powerful and he uses that to great advantage to catch anything and everything.
The yellow spots on the photo originate from yellow flowers that were between me and the kingfisher. As a general idea you should not photograph through things that actually obscure the subject, but in this case the flowers were real close so that I was able to blur them out into yellow-ish spots, adding some color and interest to the photo. I think the result is actually quite nice.
What do I like about this photo? The beautiful subject, with lots of details. The yellow spots add some interest to an otherwise dull background. I used an open aperture (f/6.3 - the most open my lens supports at the focal length of 400mm that I used) to blur out the background and the yellow flowers.
What would I want to improve? The fence the kingfisher is standing on is somewhat ugly. While its colors do play nicely with the colors of the kingfisher, a branch would have been much preferable.