An Afternoon with the Kingfishers at Rye Meads

17th July 2018

On my last visit the second brood eggs were just about to hatch, so time for another visit now that the chicks should be a couple of weeks old and hopefully being fed regularly. What was immediately noticeable was that only the male was bringing in food, so perhaps the female was thinking about laying eggs for a third brood.

In this pose the Kingfisher looked as if it was emulating a Bittern, but in reality was cheking out a possible threat from above.

On one visit the Kingfisher behaved quite differently and circled round the pond a couple of times before settling on a nearby branch. The brown feet show this to be a juvenile bird, probably one of the first brood, as it immediately got chased off by the male.

Now for an attempt to get some shots of the male as it flew into the nest hole and, even more difficult, getting it flying out again.

Then the male changed its behaviour and starting hovering in front of the bank at the far end, possibly where the next nest was going to be. This was even more of a challenge as the light was now going and with their wing-beat I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/3000th second, so I had to wind the ISO up to 8000. Thank goodness for modern cameras.