News from Gavin Bickerton-Jones Photography

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Wymondham Kingfishers

Jan 2022

I went for a walk on the River Tiffey footpath in Wymondham in early Jan, and was amazed to see a male Kingfisher sat on a branch taking in the winter sun! I had heard from a friend that one had been spotted, and knew they had nested there before, but great to see it within 10 mins of getting there! Kingfishers like shallow, slow moving rivers and streams, with plenty of branches to perch on and fish from, the Tiffey is perfect for this, especially after a lot of work was done last year to clean up the river and encourage more fish. ! got a couple of shots for record, and decided to come back sporadically to see if any chance of it pairing up. I went back a couple of times in January, weather permitting, and saw a couple of ‘fly pasts’ with the distinctive ‘peep peep’ high pitched whistle as he zoomed by.

 

Feb

I went a few times in February and once again got some nice shots as the male fished from an over hanging branch in the winter sun. They don’t really think about pairing up until around March, so a quiet month with just a couple of visits to keep tabs on his behaviour to see where he was using to fish etc. The main way to distinguish the sex’s of Kingfishers is the beak, the male is completely black, whereas the female has a red bottom mandrel, sometimes completely red, sometimes just half red. Think of it as lipstick to remind you!

 

March

Things were hotting up now, and from early March onwards I spent 3-4 hours most days at all different times from morning to evening. I noticed the area he seemed to use as a central point, and he was still zipping up and down the river. It was a precarious position sitting on the riverbank trying not to slide in the water, and as the vegetation grew it got easier to get purchase. A few other photographers and members of the public would come and go on the footpath, I’m sure some residents thought I must be crazy sitting in the nettles with my big camera, but I can’t think of a better place to sit in the sun by a tranquil river becoming part of the kingfishers’ world. There were some people who popped over with a camera saying it was a boost to mental health sitting there watching wildlife, and I can relate to that. From around 17th March he was very busy up and down, fishing and flying around, and then on the 18th I heard the distinctive ‘peep peep’ and two Kingfishers zipped by, chasing each other as part of a courtship routine. This was getting promising, I didn’t see the female perched, just flying past, but was hoping to witness the next stage of courtship, a fish pass, for the first time. 

 

Whilst sitting there in the waiting times with no Kingfisher, there were water voles to see swimming around and eating the vegetation, Egrets, Buzzards and Red Kites overhead, and in an old ivy covered tree opposite my spot there was a Tawny Owl roosting in a hole at the top. It gave me a fright early one morning as dawn was breaking when I heard an owl hoot in the distance, and the one near me replied with a very loud ‘Ke-wit’ answer, I nearly fell in the river!

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I concentrated on getting different action shots as he landed on a stick in the water, and noticed mud on his beak so looked like he was digging a nest, and the female appeared now and then also with mud on her beak, and then it happened. At around 6.30 AM on the 22nd, the male appeared with a fish in his beak, and he was holding it head first.

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Kingfishers always eat fish head first so the scales and fins and stickles don’t stick in their throat as they gobble it down whole, so when you see one holding a fish head first it means they are giving it to another kingfisher! Sure enough, a little ‘peep’ and whistle and the female appeared on the stick, and I got some shots of my first fish pass as the male pushed the fish into the females beak to show he can be a good provider. I saw 2 more fish passes on the 24th and 27th, all early in the morning at first light, amazing they can fish in that dim light.

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Then in late March he came and whistled but had no fish, and the female came out and looked at him as if to say, ‘where is it then’, but I think he felt it was time to take things further. It looks like the female is a first year bird, as her plumage is a little greener and paler than the male, and she has some mottling on her breast feathers like a youngster.

 

April.

At 6.20 AM on the 2nd April, the male came, whistled the female and she came on the stick briefly and they mated, another first for me to witness that!

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After that it was a bit quiet on riverside, a few fly pasts and fishing, but definitely looked like they must be sitting on eggs, taking turns going in the nest that I could see was now in the bank right next to the footpath, I thought it was further around originally but it was in a cutting about a foot from the top next to the path, so there was people and dogs walking past all the time, so I think certainly the male got used to what was danger and what wasn’t, so if you were calm and kept low he was happy to sit there for a while allowing all sorts of passers by to get a decent photo. It always made me smile when someone would ask what I was photographing, and when I told them they would say ‘Ive always wanted to see a Kingfisher’, so I would say if you can keep quiet and stand still, he will come on that stick in about 15mins, and sure enough a few people got their first Kingfisher experience like that!

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The eggs normally take around 20 days to hatch, and on the 20th at around 6AM, the male turned up with a fish headfirst again, and flew to the nest. So now I knew they must have hatched, so made a mental note of when the fledge would be 23-25 days after that. From this point on it was all action, at first light the male would bring in 6 fish in the space of 30 mins, so I guessed on 6 chicks.

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And then all through the day to last light there was a lot of action, the male doing the morning session bringing in fish (Chicks need up to 10 fish a day each!), then he would splash in the water to clean off the mud from the nest and preen his feathers, and the female would do a turn. The male would fly in and land on a handy stick that someone had put in the water, then fly to the nest. The female seemed a lot more ‘skittish’ and would fly past the nest to an overhanging branch, then fly straight in the nest from there. You could see them at any time of the day as they worked hard providing the fish, a lot of Bull heads and sticklebacks first, then Minnows later on, there would be intense action for 45mins, then about half an hour of nothing, then it would start again. The fish started quite small, then got bigger and bigger as the month went on, it was amazing to think a chick was going to swallow that big fish, one time the male got 2 fish in his beak!

 

 May

As we went into May, the fish size seemed to drop from a fat minnow longer than his beak, back to half beak long Sticklebacks, and I think this is a tactic they use to make the chicks a bit hungry to encourage them to leave the nest. By the 10th they were chasing each other again as part of bonding for the next clutch, as well as taking fish to the nest. I went on the afternoons of the 12th and 13th, but still no sign of the chicks, so I braced myself for an early (4.30AM) start on the 14th. As I arrived, the male turned up with a small fish and took it to the nest, then the female took one in about 15mins later, so I thought it looked like they were still in there.

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Then after about another 20mins i suddenly realised through my sleepy eyes at 5.25AM that there was a smaller, paler bird on then stick, a chick! it stayed on the stick for a while, then the male came in with a fish and they did a fish pass, then another chick appeared on the stick!

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Next another chick started fluttering around like a drunk on a Saturday night, bumping into reeds trying to land. It eventually crash landed by the stick and climbed on it to see the big world for the first time. It was amazing how they soon were zipping about flying up and down the river, making it hard to see how many there were, and then they were perching under branches at water level, with the parents flying about with fish to keep feeding them. It was a great sight to see, a privilege to be sharing their world for a short while.

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I went back over the next few days to see if the chicks were around, but no sign and the adults were not carrying fish any more, so I think they had chased the youngsters off and were preparing for the next clutch. I went early morning on the 17th and the male came on the stick a few times, and had mud on his beak, so looks like they were digging a new nest hole. The female flew past a few times as well, so the next story begins!  On the 19th he caught a fish from the stick, and then carried it headfirst, so taking to the female, won’t be long before the next clutch are hatched.

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