The male kingfisher is definitely in the mood for love at the moment. He’s been cleaning out last years nest hole in preparation for a new breeding season. There is a female about and she has visited the hole to check out his handy-work, however she seems to be playing hard to get at the moment. When kingfishers pair up they seal the deal with the fish pass, where the male offers the female a fish he’s caught. I’ve witnessed this in the past but always at a distance so yesterday when the male sat on a perch with fish ready I was hoping to get some nice shots of the pass happening. If the fish is being held tail first with the head furthest from the beak, then the fish is for someone else, ei
On Saturday I found a new kingfisher location. I’d been there the week before photographing a heron grabbing some lunch and I thought it had the potential to be a good place for kingfishers. The heron wasn’t about but as I stood watching a couple of male teal a kingfisher flew up from a small tree on the side of the pond. It whizzed off and after some mild swearing I was happy to see it return to another tree on the other side. He hung around for a few minutes and then disappeared toward the river. I decided to have a wander round the pond and it soon became apparent that there weren’t any perches low down. So I gathered up a few branches and started spacing them out around the pond to give
A first proper trip out with the new lens this weekend and I thought I’d go to the local nature reserve just to get a feel for it and see what it could do. All the usual suspects were on show but there was one star, a lesser redpoll. The reserve has been well known in the past as a good place to see these birds in the winter months but recently they have been a rarer sight so it was great to have one close up. There was only one but they generally are seen in small flocks at this time of year. Lesser Redpolls have tiny beaks that are adept at handling fine seeds so if you want them to visit your garden a niger seed feeder is a good place to start, although this one was enjoying the sunflower
