UPDATE (18th November)
May I begin this long overdue update by offering my sincere apologies to all the regular followers of this thread for the very long delay in posting it - I can’t believe it’s more than
5 months since my last update on 12th June and I’m truly sorry to have left you all in suspense for so long!
But why the long delay you may ask – well, whilst I have no intention of boring you with all the details, suffice to say that since about the time the young Kingfishers fledged in late June my family has been beset by a series of health and other personal problems/traumas with which I have been almost totally preoccupied and resulting in my having been out of (WAB) circulation for the last few months. In fact, this is the first time I have logged in to the site since the end of June!
Anyway, enough of all that and, if I may (and anyone out there is still interested?), I’ll carry on where I left off and bring you all right up-to-date with this bumper edition featuring lots of new images – I hope you enjoy it and that it makes up for the long wait!
I mentioned in one of my earlier updates that the average fledging period for Kingfishers is between 23 and 27 days and, knowing the exact date of hatching, I had calculated that the young birds should emerge between about the 22nd and 26th June. You can imagine my surprise then when I visited the site very early on the 13th June only to find a juvenile - with the characteristic dark (as opposed to bright orange) feet and white tip to the beak - sat on the perch by the side of the nest hole! My first thought was how could I possibly have got my calculations so wrong? However, I was reassured when a few minutes later the male of the resident pair appeared on the scene and chased the juvenile off through the trees on the island, only to return a little later with a fish which he took straight to the nesthole, thus confirming that there were still chicks in the nest. I now believe the juvenile to have been a recent fledgling from an adjoining territory and here’s a photo of it –
Soon after this incident the resident male was back again and this time landed on a perch I’d placed right in front of my hide. He was now only some 2 metres away from me and I immediately noticed that he had a very muddy beak and feet– see photo below - indicating that he was again working on a new nesthole (presumably for the next brood?) and even though his current family of youngsters were still some 10 – 14 days away from fledging!
What a morning of activity this proved to be! By the time I left the site at about 8.30am (to go to work!) both adult birds had made numerous appearances and visits to the nesthole, bringing in no less than 9 quite large fish; the male had chased off the intruding juvenile mentioned earlier; both birds showed signs of new nesthole digging activity and they even found time for a mating session – all in the space of less than 3 ½ hours! I’d also heard (for the first time) the youngsters ‘churring’ in the nesthole as the adult birds went in with fish and from a distance of some 7 metres away, so you can imagine the volume was quite loud.
Incidentally, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that despite this mating session taking place on the perch right in front of my hide I didn’t manage to get any decent shots of it. I was desperately trying to focus on the mating pair but it was all over before I realised that I’d forgotten to switch my lens onto the short focus setting! Still, I learned a lesson from that and about 10 days after this event I did manage to get a 15 shot rapid fire sequence of the entire 3 seconds of a mating session at close range (more about that later – and no wisecracks about the male’s performance please ladies!), but not before missing yet another very early morning mating session which took place a few days earlier, and again on the perch right in front of my hide, just as I was setting up my camera!
By the 20th day after hatching the size (and the quantity) of the fish being brought to the nest by the parent birds had reached surprising proportions and I found it almost unbelievable that the young birds could possibly swallow fish of that size and at such a rate – here’s a couple of examples of the size of fish they were bringing in at the rate of about 5 per hour
My extensive reading/research about Kingfishers indicated that fledglings nearly always leave the nest during the very early morning and, being determined not to miss the event, I had decided to visit the site at first light every day from day 21 (after hatching) onwards. By the 22nd/23rd day there was a noticeable change in the behaviour of the parents as they brought fish to the nest. Instead of taking the fish straight into the nesthole, the parent birds would often spend 10 minutes or so flitting around the various perches near the nest whilst calling and making regular but only very fleeting visits to the end of the nesthole tunnel and then re-emerging with the fish still in their beak. They would do this several times before actually taking the fish into the nest and it caused the youngsters to ‘churr’ very loudly. Not only that, but the feeding rate dropped and the adults were by now bringing in much smaller fish – as if to give the young birds just enough to get by but leaving them hungry enough to want more and I can only imagine that the parents were trying to tempt the youngsters out of the nest.
This behaviour continued through days 22, 23, 24 and 25 and it was during this period that I managed to get the sequence of mating shots I mentioned earlier. I won’t bore you with all 15 shots and I did put one of them onto the
Gallery back in June but here’s three more, the 2nd of which shows how the male steadies himself by gripping the female’s head feathers with his bill -
On day 26 I was on site again before first light (at 4am!) and as only one of my four books on Kingfishers says that the chicks stay in the nest for longer than this, I was fairly confident that today would be the day! It was a horrible wet and blustery morning but after nearly 60 site visits I was determined not to miss the moment of fledging. The parent birds continued the behaviour of days 22 – 25 as described earlier and by 6.15am I could hear the sound of flapping wings coming from the end of the nesthole. By this stage the youngsters apparently take it in turns to go down to the end of the nesting tunnel to stretch their wings before taking flight and although I couldn’t actually see the nesthole from my hide (due to some overhanging brambles) the sound was unmistakeable.
Unfortunately, just as the moment of the first youngster’s flight from the nest appeared to have arrived I had to leave the site in a hurry due to a medical emergency at home. I simply picked up my camera gear and ran for home, leaving my dome hide on site as there wasn’t time to dismantle it.
I returned to the site later in the day to retrieve my hide and although it was a very short visit of only about 20 minutes I neither saw nor heard anything of the adult birds or the youngsters. As I left the site I was convinced that I had missed the young birds’ departure from the nest and, although feeling somewhat disappointed at that after spending so many hours monitoring the birds’ progress, by now and as a result of the morning’s events at home my thoughts had turned to other more important matters. I visited the site again for about an hour in the evening and whilst I saw nothing of any of the birds (despite walking all around the area), I did hear a very weak call coming from the trees on the island and which I presumed to be one of the fledglings.
I was on site again soon after first light the next morning (day 27 after hatching), in the hope of perhaps seeing one or two of the fledglings or even a family group. I took up position in my semi-permanent on-site hide, not really expecting to see much but within a few minutes the adult male appeared and spent 15 minutes or so switching between perch positions near the nesthole but without any fish. Then he flew off but repeated this a little later before flying off again. Some time later he returned to the perch nearest to the nesthole but this time with a fish which, to my delight, he immediately took into the nest indicating that at least one juvenile was still in there!
It’s apparently not uncommon for young Kingfishers to stagger their departure from the nest over a couple of days and on seeing this I decided to set up my dome hide in its usual position within about 7 metres of the nesthole. Unfortunately, however, as I was assembling it behind a belt of trees and out of sight of the nest area, a gust of wind caught it and snapped one of its alloy poles making it unusable – things were just not going my way!
So it was back to my on-site hide and no sooner was I back in there when the male re-appeared with another small fish and started repeating the ‘come and get it’ behaviour around the nesthole as described earlier, but this time instead of eventually taking the fish into the nest, after a few minutes he decided to eat it himself!
By about 6am the male was back on the nesthole perch calling loudly but not going near the hole and then at 6.05 a young bird emerged from the nesthole and made its first tentative flight across the 5 metres or so of water onto the perch on the opposite bank and right near my usual dome hide position (if only I’d had a spare alloy pole – I have now!). The adult male remained on the perch near the nesthole and being able to see the two birds within the same view highlighted just how dull the newly emerged fledgling’s colouring was compared to its father.
5 minutes later a second fledgling emerged and this one very obligingly took a different and longer flightpath directly towards my hide position, flapping its wings furiously and in a not very controlled fashion before landing in a dense bush in the bank beneath my hide but out of my line of sight. As I’m sure you can imagine I was over the moon at having witnessed this, particularly after yesterday’s events and disappointment, and here’s the best photo I managed to get of one of the fledglings (please bear in mind this was from some 20 metres away) –
No further youngsters emerged from the nest that morning but given the feeding rate I’d witnessed in the days prior to fledging I’m convinced there must have been at least 5 chicks in the nest (typical brood size is 7) and that the other fledglings probably left the nest the day before.
The 2 youngsters I’d seen emerge remained perched in dense bushes for the remainder of the time I spent at the site that morning – I guess that coming out of darkness into the big wide world is a bit of a shock to the system! In fact the only other activity of interest that morning was when Mum turned up and sat on a perch near one of the fledglings stretching and flapping her wings before diving into the water beneath her perch, as if trying to demonstrate fishing technique to the youngsters. There was another nice moment a little later when both adult birds arrived together and landed on the same perch only about 2 feet apart and then began calling loudly to each other very excitedly and as if in celebration of their success in raising their brood.
I visited the site again each morning for the next 2 days and whilst I had many more sightings of both the adult birds and individual juveniles, the level of activity immediately around the nesthole area was now much reduced with the birds moving around a lot and taking up perch positions all around the local area, thus presenting few good photo opportunities. Sadly I didn’t manage to get any ‘family group’ shots or any of the parent birds feeding the youngsters, but I can’t really complain about that as over the previous few months these birds had given me my very best birdwatching in more than 30 years as a ‘birder’ – not to mention a collection of several thousand Kingfisher shots, any one of which I would have been delighted with in the past.
Since the end of June and for the reasons mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this update, my visits to the nest site area have been very few and far between with only 3 visits during July and a single visit in August. However, the behaviour of the adult birds on these occasional visits and the evidence of further nest building (and mating) during the run-up to fledging - as mentioned earlier – leaves me convinced that the pair went on to raise another brood, though I’m uncertain as to the precise location of the nesthole they used.
This is borne out by the fact that during late August we had a number of sightings of juveniles (possibly the same one each time?) in our garden and as we’re only about 250 metres from the nest site area and the timing ties in with the typical laying/incubation/fledging periods, this does seem quite feasible. Here’s a couple of photos of a juvenile in our garden – one sat on the back of a bench (overlooking one of my ponds) and one on the now familiar ‘No Fishing’ perch. I apologise in advance for the quality of these two images – they were taken on a dark wet morning through a wet window.
I'm pleased to say that the level of Kingfisher activity within our garden has increased even more over the last few weeks with both adult birds making regular and often prolonged visits (of up to 40 minutes and sometimes several times a day) and being seen on successive days for up to a week or more. I’m convinced they probably visit us on a least a daily basis and, as my wife says, they can be great time wasters as whenever either of us spots one of them all other activity stops whilst we watch them. Here’s a few photos taken in my garden 3 / 4 weekends ago, when we had adults and juveniles in the garden, but not at the same time -
And then two weekends ago we had the adult female and a juvenile in the garden together. The juvenile made two unsuccessful dives for fish with the adult female screeching at it from her perch position on the back of a garden bench (as if giving instructions!). The juvenile’s 3rd dive was successful but a few minutes later the adult male flew in and chased it off. Here’s a few more shots from that weekend –
I’m very conscious that this update is already far too long and probably much too boring for many WAB members (my apologies to the non-Kingfisher enthusiasts) but may I end with a few bits of good news – regular readers of the thread will perhaps recall that my main motivation for the monitoring of these birds was to ensure that their long-standing nesting territory received as much protection as possible in the face of the proposed development of some 1200 acres of land adjacent to and around it for the construction of a new town. A few months ago I attended a public consultation meeting in our village where I spoke to the professional ecologist engaged by the developers to advise on such matters. To my relief and delight she not only acknowledged the presence of the Kingfishers but also assured me that no development will take place in the immediate area of the site. Indeed, I was assured that the current plan is to treat the area surrounding the nest site as a wildlife conservation area with enhanced protection and screening for the Kingfishers – and she even asked me to send her some of my photos! I only hope the developers keep to their word.
Another bit of good news (for me at least) is that as a result of growing local interest in my Kingfisher monitoring/photographs, a few months ago one of our local farmers and his wife invited me to observe and photograph a family of Barn Owls on their land. Here again, due to the personal/family issues which have dominated my life over recent months (and the fact that I didn’t have the necessary Schedule 1 licence for these birds), I wasn’t able to take up this opportunity until the chicks had fledged and become almost totally independent of the parent birds. However, once the young birds had been flying for almost 4 weeks and had begun hunting for themselves I did spend several evenings at the site and managed to get some half-decent shots, some of which I’ll post in the
Gallery shortly. However, my Schedule 1 licence application for next year is in the post so maybe a ‘Barn Owl Diary (with photos)’ will be my next project?
Finally, I’m also posting on the
Gallery some of my favourite and what I consider to be very best Kingfisher shots of recent months – I hope you enjoy them and my apologies once again for the delay in bringing you all up-to date.
Jeff
) examples of my earlier photos of Kingfishers in my garden. One of them is a prize-winning amateur photographer himself,though not of wildlife, and was therefore able to comment authoritatively on my photographic skills - such as they are 
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