The Common Kingfisher is a small, beautiful bird, about 6.5 inches long, usually short tailed and large headed. It has blue upper parts and orange underparts.
It belongs to a group of birds called Alcedinidae family with around 90 species grouped in three subfamilies. Most of them are brightly coloured, with a short, stubby tail, large head and long pointy bill. Most of them nest in cavities, usually tunnels dug into vertical banks, some species nesting in abandoned termite nests. They eat a wide variety of prey, including small fish.
They usually hunt fish by swooping down from a perch.
I first learnt about the kingfisher when I was little, from a lovely book about Romanian fauna written by Ion Simionescu, before WWII. The book was very descriptive and filled with little stories about all the animals living in Romania.
I was able to see the kingfisher, for the first time, many years later and only saw it a couple of times.
I recently found an article about kingfishers in “Dorset Wildlife Magazine”, written by Paul Tutton, a Dorchester teacher and amateur wildlife photographer. Lovely pictures of a beautiful bird. His images can be viewed on www.flickr.com/photos/73096399@N07
With Paul Tutton permission, I have decided to paint a few of his kingfisher photos, this week, being the first one done, in my “A painting a week” series.
It was a bit of a challenge, because I painted the bird bigger than life size and I only painted 3 paintings of birds before (all three, depicting long tailed tits).
So here it is, my challenge for this week:
“Common Kingfisher searching for prey”
After a photo by Paul Tutton
Oil on linen
30 X 40cm (12” X 16”)
