Ice Fishing

Thanks for checking in to this blog!

For the last 6 winters I've been working in Northern Sweden and no kingfishers there. With the situation being what it is this year I've been home.

I've had a dream shot in my head for many years of photographing a kingfisher diving through a hole in the ice. Just so happens I've a friend (Mark Hughes who runs a hide which regularly has kingfishers - can be found here) who has shared the same dream and he contacted me to say that he thought that might be possible.

This was last weekend. I got set up and the female kingfisher came in dived into the ice hole and volia I got this shot  

She then flew off with the fish to feed to the male kingfisher and I went out to check things. Tweaked the set up. Hid again and waited. This time she came back did multiple dives caught a fish and flew off. I went out to check the camera and to my shock saw the lens had completely fogged over, it was -3C, but I was not expecting this to happen. I then checked the back of the camera and to my horror saw this amazing shot but obviously ruined with the fogged lens.

I shall not write an essay here other than to say today was an amazing morning. The female kingfisher came out three times and because of the additional snow it really helped with the lighting. I used the Canon R5 which really helped with the 20 frames per second and my old trusty Canon EF 300mm f2.8 L IS.

It truely was a fantastic morning!

Apologies for the briefness of the words - Sunday night and shattered.

I have put all of the images below in a mini gallery as they may be an easier way to click through them also this way they can viewed at a much higher resolution on a big screen.

Thanks for checking in and if you have any questions please ask in the comments box below.

All the best,

Oliver