A sunny day at the Kingfisher nest.

It's now a tense few days at the nest site with the nestlings surely ready to fledge very soon.  I had originally said that they were due to fledge  on July 9th and I dont think I will be too far off that. We are in the middle of a warm spell of summer weather with hot, bright and very sunny conditions. I spent 3 hours at the nest this morning and in that time both birds were delivering fish to the burrow regularly. A few times the female perched on the mud beneath the nest and then lingered with a large fish before she entered the nest and fed the youngsters. This is all pretty much the same as I have observed for the last week with not a great deal to add. The excitement of the chicks fledging the nest is about to happen and this should hopefully give me some great photo opportunities. I am hoping for interaction between the adults and young.

 

Today's bright sunshine made it more difficult to get a good photograph because of the intense shadow and harsh light, but here the female is perched beneath the nest with what appears to be a roach.  You can jus see the orange lower mandible on the bird which shows that this is the female.

After quite a pause she flew with the fish up in to the nest. I have no idea why she  is likely to perch beneath the nest when she has large fish but I have never seen either the male or the female perched beneath the nest with small fish prey.

This appears to be the male but later on in the morning when it was even brighter and the sun was casting even more shadows, photography was evn more difficult.

 

We have had some disturbance from fishermen this last few days and I have contacted the Wildlife Crimes Officer at the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary for advice.   He offered me some guidance as to how I should deal with these potential nest threatening disturbances and both yesterday and today I asked people to move away which I am glad to say, they did willingly. Hopefully, over the hot weekend, we won't have further problems. The only other things of note today was when the female  perched beneath the nest with a fish. She was suddenly disturbed by a dog walker just above her on the bank, she quickly flew over to my side of the river,  still with her fish and then when the coast was clear, flew back again and went in to the nest. On another occasion, she entered the nest when people were splashing about, no more than 30 metres away, proving that even though Kingfishers are said to be easily disturbed, the instinct to feed their young is even stronger. It could be that this busy area is a good place to breed because predators such as mink and weasels may be reluctant to frequent this area. The only threat to their safety now  would be a sudden flood and this is not forcast.  However, a spring tide is due on Sunday and Monday, fingers crossed it won't flood the nest, it hasn't so far so things should be OK.