Three kingfishers, three completely different hunting strategies, all within a short jeep ride of Tissa lake.
Kingfishers do not really fish in the romantic way the name suggests. They mostly sit very still, stare at the water, and then drop on something. Which makes them excellent photographic subjects, and a brilliant way to teach a beginner how to actually wait.
The pied kingfisher
The pied is our showman. He is the only one of the three that hovers — a sharp, motorised hover ten metres above the lagoon, head locked on a single fish, before folding his wings and dropping like a small black-and-white stone. He nests in earth banks, often in small colonies, and the chatter at a colony at dawn is one of the better sounds in the dry zone.
The white-throated
The white-throated kingfisher is the one you will see on every telegraph wire on the drive from Tissa to Yala — bright chestnut belly, electric-blue back, a chocolate-brown head and a heavy red bill. He is barely a fisherman at all. He hunts lizards, frogs and large insects from a perch in any open country, water or not.
The common kingfisher
The common kingfisher is the tiny, jewel-blue one that streaks low across a canal and disappears before you can lift the camera. To see him properly you have to stake out a quiet stretch of irrigation channel with a known perch and sit. Bring something to read. It will be worth it.
