Kingfisher - Tales from the Halcyon River
Kingfisher - Tales from the Halcyon River. By Charlie Hamilton James.
There can be few birds or animals that lend themselves to photography like the kingfisher. That brilliant iridescent flash of blue as the kingfisher takes flight, the perfect aerodynamics, which should be called hydrodynamics as they are designed for the explosive entry into the water, and the golden orange of the breast.
And that is just the common garden British kingfisher (Common/Eurasian kingfisher). There are 86 species of kingfisher known in the world (and a few sub-species too), with the majority of species occurring in Africa, Asia and Australia. North America has just one species, South America has five.
Charlie Hamilton James was the Young Wildlife Photographer of the year in 1990 and 1991, and in 2007 he won the Royal Television Society award for cinematography. He has a hide by his house where he spends much of his spare time, and he has spent many an hour photographing the kingfishers on the river outside his home. The shots taken inside the nest are amazing, and quite how he gets the extraordinary underwater shots beats me - Though he does gives tips on how he does it.
Last week we reviewed a coffee table book that did nothing for us - who hasn't seen pictures of elephant before? And while there was nothing new in Elephant Reflections, this book raises the bar with some extraordinary photographs. James knows his photography, and he knows his kingfishers too. And he has been round the world photographing kingfishers, so if you are vaguely interested in kingfishers or wildlife photography, you should think seriously about getting this book.
Published by Evans Mitchell Books. RRP £2499
To buy a copy of this book, click Kingfisher.
Some of Charlie Hamilton James photos are fantastic
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