I photographed these pied kingfishers at Lake Koriftu, Ethiopia. I had seen these birds there for several days, they seemed quite young to me, coming from the same nest. At some point, they were sitting nicely side by side on a branch, so I saw my chance to photograph them. Just as I was printing, the birds startled and took off. It turned out that a man was walking in their direction - he didn't notice anything, but this gave me a nice action shot. (Incidentally, the scare was undoubtedly not traumatic for the birds - they are used to people and stayed nearby).
In this photo, I appreciated the vibrancy and energy. Pied kingfishers are beautiful, they can fly fast and it is not easy to get them in motion in the photo; so in this case they succeeded.
My name is Arie Maasland (1976). I lived in Ethiopia for over four years, during which time I spent a lot of time taking nature photos: birds, landscapes and macro photos (insects, flowers, butterflies).
Ethiopian nature is beautiful and the photographic conditions are often favourable (read: lots..
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