A kingfisher leaps off its perch in a flash, diving out of shot much faster than any human reaction. Unless you are continuously shooting how can you capture this moment?
When I first started I was watching where the kingfishers head was looking trying to work out what it was thinking and preempt its movements. This was relatively unsuccessful, capturing ~5% of dives in action. As mentioned previously, a kingfisher hunting in a wet environment needs to dry its feathers out between dives and will fluff up its feathers in order to dry them out faster. These fluffed up feathers are not streamlined enough to fly, though, and they are flattened back against their bodies before taking to the air. This is crucial to capturing that moment of action. If you watch the body closely, especially the chest area, you can see the feathers flatten to the body before it takes flight. The change is clearly visible with the size of the bird reducing by about one third. This may only give you an extra 0.5s but that is just long enough for human reaction to capture that moment it takes flight. With this tip, I have increased the success rate of capturing kingfishers in flight from ~5% to ~80%.
Kingfisher with its feathers all puffed up 
Kingfisher with its feathers flattened out ready to fly
Now that we know that the flattening of feathers to the body means the bird is about to take flight, we can apply this knowledge to its other behaviours. The kingfisher will also flatten its feathers when it is scared. Having its feathers already flattened means it can take flight faster if it needs to. This is then also a good indicator of how the bird is reacting to you in the vicinity. If you are currently approaching one and notice it flattening its feathers stop and wait for it to calm down and fluff them up again. It is ready to fly and in the time it will take to bring your camera up, focus and shoot it will have been startled and gone. Waiting for it to return to a calm state you can photograph it in its natural behaviour without startling it. You should also be looking out for the kingfisher looking directly at you – but you should already know that.
Also check out my posts on a kingfishers habitat and behaviour and for more photos see my sacred kingfisher gallery
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