I had a strange premonition this morning as I walked towards the Kingfisher nest site, the thought struck me that it was about time one of them came close enough to get a good photograph. I had been inside the hide, which is opposite the nest burrow for just 6 minutes when I heard a Kingfisher approaching from my right and then he landed in the willow tree in front of me and to my left and at last, very close. I worked out that I have been watching for a total of 16 hours so far and I have seen both birds almost constantly from the opposite bank and now here he was, right in front of me. ! As you can see, I had some obstructions to deal with, branches and the like and the light was not ideal, it was from behind the bird and almost in my face, fortunately the sun went behind a cloud for a few moments and I had the opportunity to get some half decent pictures. I needed to use all my experience to make the best of the opportunity. This is the male bird, you can tell by his solid black beak, the female has an orange lower mandible. He remained on the perch here for almost ten minutes before moving off to join his mate who had flown from the nest burrow. I couldn't see him now, nor the female but from the amount of calling I imagined that they were mating. I didn't manage to see what hapened next but I think he flew in to the nest burrow. I was slightly concerned though because I hadn't seen either bird enter the burrow yesterday or today but then I caught sight of one disappearing inside, confirming that breeding activity is taking place. It seems that the female is spending most of the time in the nest. I have no evidence that proves the male has done any incubating as yet but thats not to say he hasn't. The male is far noisier than the female, he always calls to announce his presence whereas the female is more furtive. However, she does call as well. I am not certain but there seems to be two differing calls, without any scientific evidence to prove it but it seems to me that the female seems to have a two sylable call, differing to the male's single sylable. I actually stayed at the hide for 3 hours this morning and during that time the male came to the same close perch on three different occasions. On the last visit he first flew to the nest burrow calling loudly all the time, he didn't land but circled around and then came over to my side, landing in that very same spot and this time with a very big fat minnow in his beak, held tail first. This was without doubt an offering to the female. He reamained on the perch with it, calling constantly, for a minute or so. I was praying for the female to join him, hoping to see a common breeding interaction called the "fish-pass" but she didn't, much to my disappointment. Eventually he gave up and flew up stream with it. I was keen to see if any of my pictures were aceptable and I left for home just as the clock struck noon.
Recent Comments