UPDATE (17th February 2008)
As it’s more than 6 weeks since my last update and we’re now in mid-February already (isn’t it scary how the time flies by
) I thought I’d let you know what’s been happening with our local Kingfishers.
It’s been a bit of a mix of good and bad news in recent weeks, but hopefully nothing too disastrous for the forthcoming breeding season.
Let’s start with the bad news – a couple of weeks ago I had a walk round to the nest site area only to find that my on-site hide had been vandalised
, with one of the sides partly torn open and a stool (which I kept in the hide) plus several perches having been scattered about in some dead nettles. Not a big deal really – I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it - and with no obvious motive I’ve put it down to mindless vandalism by some cretin with nothing better to do.
In fact I was far more troubled to find that after the winter rains the water level surrounding the nest site island was at least 15 – 18 inches higher than I have seen it before and was actually above the level of the nesting hole used to successfully rear last year’s brood. It had also risen to within a foot or so of the top of the newly created section of vertical banking I mentioned in an earlier post, and if the water remains at this level this stretch of banking will be unusable by the birds. However, there remains more than enough higher level banking available for them, including a section they’ve used several times in the past, so I’m not too concerned about the situation at this stage though I would hope the water level drops a little before nesting begins.
As for the birds themselves, until today - more on that later - my wife and I hadn’t seen much of them in the garden for the last 2 or 3 weeks (though that doesn’t mean they haven’t been of course), and as I’ve had reports of a couple of nearby sightings by a farmer friend I remained reasonably confident of their continued presence in the area.
As the forecast for this morning was for a fine, bright but cold and frosty start I decided to go round to the nest site area again to take some sunrise shots and to experiment with my new set of polarising and ND graduated filters. I was round there soon after 6.30am and although it was already getting light the sun was not yet up. The temperature was minus 5
and almost the entire area of water surrounding the nest site was covered in ice.
Such weather is obviously bad news for Kingfishers but I was relieved to catch a glimpse of one of the birds flying along the edge of the water towards an ice-free section in which some 15 Moorhens and several Mallards were swimming – rather them than me
.
That was the only Kingfisher sighting I had in nearly two hours at the site, though I did have the pleasure of watching a beautiful sunrise and here’s one of my shots showing the rising sun reflecting across the ice –
I also met my farmer friend walking his dog and was delighted to be told about a newly discovered
Badger sett less than 50 metres away from the Kingfisher nest site. There are several well-established
Badger setts around our village but this is the nearest to my home and on my way back I checked it out. Sure enough, there were signs of recent activity with lots of fresh bedding having been drawn around the entrances. I shall keep an eye on this sett and perhaps spend an evening or two
Badger watching
.
On returning home, by this time with very cold hands and feet, I settled down on the settee near a patio window overlooking our garden with a nice hot cup of tea and a bacon roll. Within minutes the female Kingfisher appeared on a perch by the pond but stayed only a few seconds, having probably spotted my wife and me by the window.
However, as my ponds are relatively ice-free I was confident she’d be back and so quickly set up my camera in readiness. Sure enough, she was back a little later and spent 20 minutes or so watching for fish but with only one (unsuccessful) dive being made. I did manage to get quite a few shots of her but all through the double-glazing as it was still far too cold to open a window. She’s been back again at least a couple of times since and, hopefully, has managed to catch a fish or two.
I always like to include a few photos in my updates so here’s a few shots - all taken in the garden, with some from this morning (including a very poor effort to catch her hovering) plus a couple from Autumn of last year –
Finally, within the next 2 or 3 weeks and providing this very cold weather doesn’t persist for too long, I hope to be able to report that the male and female are paired up again in their nesting territory – fingers crossed
.
Jeff
.
, here it is – my apologies for the very poor quality but you can just about make out the 2 females playing book-ends and in very aggressive posture on either side of the tree trunk, with the male a partly obscured blob of colour in the background to the right. I’ll try to do better next time.
