Brown-Hooded KF

Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x Extender @ 700mm, Aperture Priority @ f/8 (1/1250 sec), -2/3 EV, ISO 400, Beanbag on Car Door, JPEG from RAW, About 60% of Full Frame

Before flying over to South Africa, going by photos I'd seen on the net, I knew there were at least three species of Kingfisher: Giant, Pied, and Malachite. Never got to see a Giant, and only had the fleetest of glances at a Malachite as it zipped over the surface of a pond before disappearing from sight, but at least I had a couple of opportunities with the Pied, albeit in pretty miserable weather conditions.

However, one unexpected bonus was coming across a species I'd never heard of before – a Brown-Hooded Kingfisher – and despite once again some fairly cluttered surroundings, I'm rather pleased with a few frames of the many I fired off, this one being one of those.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of this particular species is not so much it's physical appearance, but the fact that it's usually found quite far from water and apparently has little interest in fish, preferring to eat bugs and insects though I believe it wouldn't turn it's beak up at the odd little frog or lizard ;^)

In a perfect world I'd much prefer if that OOF branch weren't covering part of the subject's body, but if you only knew how many attempts over the course of a few days I'd made at trying to grab a single shot of this little bird with something of a catchlight in it's eye, methinks you too would be willing to overlook that flaw ;^)

Critique and comments are of course always welcome!