THE RETURN OF
THE KING
by Paul Risley
2012
Over the following winter I managed to contact an old friend called Roy. A very experienced wildlife photographer Roy had by coincidence been photographing another Kingfisher nest 3 miles away from mine the previous summer, it was on a different river but both pairs would use the same canal to hunt on as it runs through both territories. Roy gave me some top tips on photography, sorted the licenses out and adapted the hide to make it much less conspicuous
Spring came and I visited the nesting area again several times‘, Hard winters take a big toll on Kingfisher populations and we had two long cold spells again that winter. eventually on one of the later visits I finally found a pair, chasing each other excitedly up and down the river, the signs looked good. By April the birds had laid eggs and were busy incubating. One of the pair, the Male had a British Trust for Ornithology ring on his leg, this made identifying which bird was which slightly easier.
Male kingfisher
On a cold morning in early April the male sits near to the nest, having just fed the female and having eaten himself he sits lowon his perch, feathers puffed out and covering his feet to keep them warm, all is good with his world
Unfortunately the good times were all too brief, by early May it becomes apparent something had gone wrong, there was no signs of the birds, I asked around the few people who knew about the nest and no one had seen the birds over the last few days. A brief inspection of the nest hole revealed claw marks in the banking just below an overhanging root. all the evidence points to a Mink having scurried up the banking and gone into the nest hole. We couldn’t be sure if one of the birds had been caught on the nest,both birds share incubation but the lack of sightings of even a single bird in their regular hunting spots suggested it had. A week later this became even more likely. While at work I get a phone call from Roy who had been watching the other nest a few miles away, a new Kingfisher had appeared in the area, it was a male bird wearing a BTO ring, within a couple of minutes of being in the area this bird had flown into the nest hole and thrown the young out and into the river, Infanticide, this was a double disaster.A week later Roy called, his birds were laying eggs again. The original Male had chased the ringed intruder off. There was still no signs of any birds present at my nest. This now meant I had a bit of spare time, so I decided to check out some new areas were I had seen Kingfishers in the past. One area in particular had attracted my attention, looking over my old birding records I had regularly seen single Kingfishers in this area, there are some prominent sand banks, but I’ve never seen any nest holes here. There’s also a section of River that is completely out of bounds, the only way to check that area would be by canoe or dinghy, I start to ponder about the possibility of going down the river in one and even discuss it with Dave but eventually have to give up on the idea on the simple grounds of not having a clue about sailing or canoeing nor the logistics of even getting to the river with said boat or canoe.
I eventually decide to work up the river as far as I can get on foot and go over everything again. As I work my way up the River I get a flypast, the bird coming from behind me and carrying on up River and out of sight. This is a good start, I carry on slowly inspecting both banks as I go, I eventually work past what look like the best area’s with no further sightings or signs, As I mentioned earlier it's hard going up River Banks, even in early summer when the Balsam and Nettles aren’t quite that high, the muddy ground still saps the energy from your legs and the nettles are just high enough to sting your knees above the top of your wellies. I’m now past the best parts and just aimlessly walking up the River wondering about the possibility of there being better sand banks in the inaccessible parts of the River when a Kingfisher flies down the River towards me and turns back on itself as it spots me, heading back up River and out of sight. Something about its reactions puzzle me, why didn’t it just give me a wide berth and carry straight on past me which is normally what Kingfishers do, I carry on a bit quicker up the River, it had flown around a bend in the River and gone out of sight behind the trees on the edge of the wood, As I get to the bend I disturb it and once again and again it flies up River. This time I decide not to follow, I hide behind a small wall where I can't be seen from the River should the Kingfisher decide to come back this way but were I can see most of the River down from me. Within five minutes the Kingfisher flies past me oblivious to my presence, it carries on and lands in a tree close to where I had been standing when I had first seen it, there are two short stretches of banking, I know I should wait and observe but I can't wait. This was the reason it hadn’t given me a wide birth and carried on down the river, this is where it wanted to go, why did it want to be there? I rush down to check, as I get there the bird in the tree flushes on my approach, As I get to the bank a second bird appears from the bank, hovers for a couple of seconds and flies away, I lie on the bank and peer over, its there, A Kingfisher nest hole with muck dribbling out of the entrance, this means they have young, there’s nothing for it but to punch the air and shout yes in my head. this is the birding equivalent of a winning goal in a big, big football game. I quickly leave and make my way back to the wall in the distance to hide and watch, after a while the parents return with food go straight in and feed. When droppings start to come from the front of the nest hole it is usually a sign that the young are getting well developed, this being so it was pretty disappointing that I miss calculated the fledging date completely and by the time I caught up with the birds once again they were flying up river with food and onto private land, one of the most frustrating and annoying aspects of observing a highly mobile species.
A couple of weeks later in early June and I’m walking the canal when I spot the distinct flash of blue disappear into the woodland alongside the canal. A large pond is in the woods here so I have a good idea this is where the bird will be. I make my way towards the nearby bridge, coming back on the other side I see the flash of blue fly back to the canal. I realise I need to work on my approach to the pond if I’m going to get any sightings here. From the pond a good scan of the surrounding topography reveals only a small area some 150 yards away were a few of the main kingfisher perches can be scanned. I retire to this area and wait. The canal is usually busy around here with either dog walkers or joggers so I sit and hope I don’t have to wait too long before my little friend gets disturbed. Ten minutes pass, this seems like an eternity when your waiting on a hunch. It pays off though. It flies in does a circuit of the pond as if inspecting everything then lands on a small branch sticking out of the water, from my viewpoint I can make out it’s one of this years juveniles, little brown feet instead of the bright red of the adults and still wearing the white tip on the end of its beak. I get up and back off, it remains on its perch meaning I’m far enough away for it to be comfortable with me. In the coming weeks I go to the pond on more occasions, each time carefully walking to the elevated distant spot to check the perches. nearly every time I go I find the little bird there, it gets to the point I start to joke every time I’m passing the area that I’m just going to check on my little mate, I can park the car nearby and within five minutes have checked the pond to see if it was there.
Summer 2012 was the wettest for over 100 years, although I managed to make several visits to the original nest site I had found, no other Kingfishers were seen, the Sparrowhawks here had also succumbed to the weather and abandoned their nest, a Sand Martin colony nearby had also suffered. The Sand banks had collapsed through being constantly saturated, burying eggs and young. While all around seemed to be suffering from the weather surprisingly the Kingfishers seemed to be doing ok. Roy’s nest to the north finished the season by fledging two broods despite the early setback. The new nest site also produced another brood and even more surprisingly on August 18th I got a phone call off my workmate Dave to say 3 young had fledged from our original nest site. I managed to get there just in time to watch them for a while as they started to follow the parents up River.
The youngster on the woodland pond stuck around incredibly throughout Summer and Autumn and into the start of Winter, as winters go this one was bad again, a cold spell that lasted for over three weeks left most of the waterways apart from the Rivers frozen. 2 weeks into the freeze I went out to look for the little Kingfisher, his usual pond was completely frozen over and was eerily quiet in its white blanket, I moved deeper into the woods to a larger pond that is fed by an underground stream, part of the pond and the feeder stream usually stays free from ice even in the coldest of weather, luckily the area was still flowing slowly but there was an old gentleman there feeding the ducks. I decide to carry on and walk past him anyway and hopefully get a glimpse up the feeder stream. As I pass I comment on how nice it is of him to feed the ducks and explain how I often intend to bring some bread for them and that I always end up feeling guilty because the ducks always swim towards me when I pass them expecting some food. We strike up a conversation and after a while he explains if I’m careful and just peer around an evergreen bush a couple of yards away and look up the feeder stream there’s a little kingfisher sitting in the bushes fishing and that it flies upstream and then comes back later when disturbed. I thank him for the information but decline to look, I explain there’s no way I want to disturb it anymore in this weather, that I had come especially to look for it and was just glad it was ok. I leave the area hoping that this is my little mate and that its doing alright so far despite the weather. Its March the next time I see a Kingfisher in the vicinity of the usual pond, it’s a male on the canal, as I crouch down beside a tree watching him I see a jogger on the other side of the canal coming my way, I sit and wait and as the jogger gets closer the kingfisher takes flight and flies past me passing just a few feet away.
Female Kingfisher
The female has red on her lower mandible although this can be hard to spot at any distance in the field, juvenile females generally only get the red colouration during their first winter.
This individual broke the end of her lower mandible whilst digging out the nest tunnel but it grew back during incubation and in this picture the new growth appears white.