My thanks to
Barbara,
Dave P,
DavyG,
zail and to
Tracey for your kind comments since I posted the 1st part of my latest update yesterday. As promised, here's Part 2 - I hope you enjoy it.
UPDATE (long overdue!) – 4th July 2008
Part 2 (covering period 30th April to 29th June)
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REMINDER
As a fairly rare and easily disturbed bird, the Kingfisher is afforded the highest degree of legal protection under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. If you “intentionally or recklessly” disturb a Kingfisher whilst trying to photograph it “in, on, at or near” the nest or whilst it has dependent young, and without the necessary Licence from Natural England, you may be committing a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 and/or a prison sentence of up to 6 months.
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For various reasons I’m afraid I wasn’t able to visit the site again until
Saturday 10th May – this was the 13th or 14th day after hatching and I expected to find the feeding regime in full swing with both parents bringing in a regular supply of fish. I was on site at 5am but by 5.45am there hadn’t been any visits to the nesthole and I hadn’t even seen a single Kingfisher – this was most unusual!
At 6.05am and again at 6.20am I heard some calling from the opposite side of the island from the nest but still no activity near the nesthole itself. This was becoming rather worrying and I decided to leave my hide and to have a walk around the area. I walked right round the lake but neither saw nor heard any Kingfishers during the 15 minutes or so that I was out of the hide.
Then at 6.40am a male bird flew from around the island onto a perch near my hide and from which it took 3 or 4 cleansing dips before spending several minutes preening. I noticed it had mud on its beak and all this clearly indicated that it had been engaged in nesthole digging. The bad news was, however, that I was pretty sure that this was the intruding male.
But how, may you ask, could I possibly distinguish between two adult male Kingfishers? Well, having watched our resident pair for hundreds of hours, on a regular basis and often at very close range I could recognise certain distinguishing features. Below are two photos – the first one of the long-resident male and the second of the intruder - and from which I hope you will see be able to see some subtle differences between them.
You’ll see that the long resident male is showing signs of thinning or worn plumage on the top of his head - a condition I can relate to and sympathise with! – though in his case it’s presumably due to the fact that in recent months he has spent many hours working on digging/renovating 4 nest holes with his head constantly rubbing on the ceiling of the nesthole tunnels.
You’ll also see that his beak is quite heavily marked and that the lower mandible is a little shorter than the upper. His beak is also a little shorter overall than the intruder’s (which is in pristine dagger-like condition), again no doubt due to nest digging activity.
There are also subtle differences in their posture when perched with the intruder usually standing more upright. His plumage is also slightly more brightly coloured or perhaps just cleaner.
Getting back to my observations on the 10th May, at 7.20am I saw another (or the same?) bird taking a cleansing dip in an area just where the banking of the island turns away and out of the range of vision from my hide.
I’d now been on site for nearly 2 ½ hours without having seen a single visit to the nesthole containing the chicks and, much as I resisted the thought, the harsh reality of the situation began to sink in – for some reason and since my last visit of 10 days ago the nest had clearly been abandoned. My guess is that the cause was predation by the intruding male but it could, of course, have been due to predation by something else.
At 7.30am I left the hide again to quickly check for signs of nesthole digging activity in the area in which I’d seen the bird(s) earlier. Sure enough – in a section of banking in what is probably the most inaccessible part of the whole area (due to the dense undergrowth and overhanging trees along both banks of the quite narrow section of water concerned) I found 3 holes I hadn’t seen before, one of which showed signs of having been newly dug.
I stayed on site for a further hour or so with just one more brief sighting of the quite brightly coloured intruding male as it flew by me towards the new nesthole area - he and his partner had clearly taken over the territory.
I know that one shouldn’t get too sentimental about the natural world but as I left the site shortly after 8.30am I couldn’t help feeling rather sorry for the long-resident but now seemingly displaced pair of birds that I had studied for so long and which, despite all their efforts and the use of no less than 4 different nestholes so far this year, had yet again been robbed of the chance of raising a successful brood. What a shame that something in the evolutionary process of these beautiful and all too rare birds has apparently made them their own worst enemies.
This was to be my last visit to the site before going on holiday on the 16th May and I didn’t get to go again until Tuesday 10th June when I called round briefly during the afternoon, anxious to discover how things had moved on since my last visit of exactly a month earlier. I had several sightings of the newly established pair, including two successful dives for fish from high, almost tree-top, perch positions and with one of the birds carrying a fish towards the new nesthole area, indicating that they now had young.
I wasn’t exactly sure of the position of the nesthole they were now occupying as I hadn’t yet found a way of observing this area due to its relative inaccessibility for the reasons mentioned earlier. There was certainly no way I could get my dome hide into that area and I decided I would have to utilise some fieldcraft and my recently purchased (mainly for use during my holiday in Scotland) camouflage clothing consisting of jacket, trousers, hat, head net and gloves – wearing all of which my wife was convinced would somehow get me arrested!
Over the next couple of weeks I made several more fairly short visits to the site, dressed in full camo gear and during each of which I managed to clear a little of the undergrowth (including nettles and brambles) along a stretch of the banking leading towards the new nesthole area. The camo gear seemed to work incredibly well with the Kingfishers and a variety of other birds (including Moorhen, Robin, Wren, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Garden Warbler) being seemingly unaware of and certainly untroubled by my presence and with several of these birds actually perching within a couple of feet of me. During the course of these visits I was also able to establish exactly where the occupied nesthole was.
Slowly but surely I cleared a very narrow strip of banking between the water’s edge and the trees running almost immediately alongside it and which I could crawl along, going under some large overhanging branches, to a narrow shelf area from which I could see the nesthole some 15 metres away. I decided this was about as near as I dared to go without risking disturbance and particularly as there was no way I could get my dome hide, or even my tripod, into this very small and inaccessible area. However, with the aid of some bits of camo scrim/netting and some natural foliage I did manage to string a small camouflaged screen along the overhanging branches on the water’s edge, giving me a concealed position from which I could now comfortably sit or lie to watch the birds entering and exiting the nesthole and with almost no risk of disturbing them. By the way, as I’m writing this I can’t help thinking I must be mad!!!!!!!!
I’ve watched the birds from this position on all my subsequent visits to the site but haven’t managed to take any decent photos due to their distance from me and the fact that the whole area is deeply shaded with many branches partly obscuring my view of the nesthole area.
The birds continued to bring fish into the nest throughout this period but, of course, not knowing when hatching took place (presumably during my month’s absence from the site) I had no idea when the young might fledge. Having said that, it was clear from the size of the fish the parent birds were now bringing in that the young must be well advanced.
Last Sunday, (29th June), I made another early morning visit to the site fully expecting that the youngsters may have fledged since my previous visit a few days earlier. I took up my concealed bankside position soon after 5am (again wearing full camo gear) and saw both adult birds bring in quite large fish, obviously indicating that there were still young in the nest. Then, to my astonishment and absolute delight, at 6.18am I watched as a fledgling flew out of the nesthole, came directly towards me and landed less than 3 metres right in front of me on an overhanging branch which I’d previously partially stripped of foliage to improve my view of the nest area and to give the birds a cleaner perch position.
For a few seconds I was mesmerised by the sight of the youngster as it steadied itself on the branch having just made its first tentative flight into the big wide world. It stretched and flapped its wings and looked around curiously, completely oblivious to my presence. My camera was on the ground behind me so after a minute or two I slowly reached for it, carefully raised it into position and then proceeded to take some 120 shots of the youngster as it remained perched there for some 12 minutes. One of the adult birds then flew in and landed on a perch nearer the nesthole; the adult called and almost immediately the youngster turned and flew to it with both of them then flying off together. What an unbelievable experience I had just enjoyed – although I’d seen two of last year’s fledglings leave the nest, I felt truly privileged to witness it again and this time to see and photograph a newly fledged Kingfisher at such close range.
By now it was just after 6.30am and as young Kingfishers tend to leave the nest in the early morning and often in fairly quick succession, I thought I might get to see further fledglings emerge. However, no more came out during the next 2 hours and the parent birds showed little further interest in the nest leading me to believe that the one I had seen was probably the last to leave, perhaps with its siblings having fledged the previous day. I had indeed been privileged to see the last of the brood depart and I left the site at 8.45am grinning like a Cheshire cat (but dressed in camo!).
Here’s a few photos of the fledgling. Whilst they are nearly all full frame shots please bear in mind that due to the heavily shaded position I had to use a very high ISO and much slower shutter speeds than one would consider ideal.
Incidentally and rather sadly, neither my wife nor I have seen any Kingfishers in our garden since before we went on holiday and I can only assume that the newcomers haven’t yet discovered our garden ponds and the varied ‘take away’ opportunities they offer. Hopefully they will do so, particularly in the winter months, and delight us once again with regular visits.
Finally, having won the nesting territory and successfully raised their first brood I would hope that this newly resident pair will have another brood this year and I’ll keep you informed of developments. However, I still think of the displaced pair with fondness and wonder what has become of them. I do hope the male wasn’t fatally or seriously injured during his valiant defence of their nesting territory, that they are both fit and well and have found themselves a new territory – still, I suppose that in terms of the preservation of the species and as their successors have raised a brood, all’s well that end’s well.
Jeff
(Schedule 1 Licence holder for Kingfishers and Barn Owls)
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REMINDER
As a fairly rare and easily disturbed bird, the Kingfisher is afforded the highest degree of legal protection under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. If you “intentionally or recklessly” disturb a Kingfisher whilst trying to photograph it “in, on, at or near” the nest or whilst it has dependent young, and without the necessary Licence from Natural England, you may be committing a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 and/or a prison sentence of up to 6 months.
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and of course, more kingfishers tales,it certainly puts my efforts to shame
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