Eastern Kingbird, Mississippi River, Green Island Wetlands, Iowa
The Eastern Kingbird is one of the larger flycatchers we can find here in the Upper Mississippi Valley but they have a big range and can be found in most of North America as well in Central America and much of South America. Eastern Kingbirds can be highly aggressive toward nest predators and they don’t hesitate to attack a much larger bird, like a crow or even a hawk.
They have no problems to find enough insects during the summer along the edges of a field and along roadsides, or like here, at the water of the lakes in the Green Island Wetlands. I saw three kingbirds today and they all perched on plants or stems, dove for insects to the ground, and quite often returned to the same perch after.
It wasn’t as quiet as it looks in these pictures. The perch plants swayed in the wind and so the birds were in constant motion and tried to hang on. Normally a shutter speed of 1/1000s is not always necessary for a sitting bird but in this matter it was required to freeze the action and get a sharp image.
Nikon Z6 III, Nikon NIKKOR Z 600 f/6.3 VR S, Nikon Z TC-1.4x, @ 840mm, 1/1000s, f/9