I was excited to see if the kingfisher had been back this week. Instead of the male, the female visited on two occasions this week. You can see DJ, the owner, walking past int the back of this shot, walking the dogs! As they have not been visiting much, we have all got out of the habit of checking the post whenever we are in the area!
You can see she is not overly disturbed by the presence of people and dogs and only flies at the point where the path curves and goes quite close to the pond edge....
Look carefully to see that her lower mandible is orange, with a black tip. Compare this to the video below, where the whole lower mandible is black. This is the male.
These still show it quite clearly. It is good to know we have a pair... well I presume they are as these birds can be quite territorial. The pond is only a few hundred metres from the River Severn and there is also a ditch on site that I have recorded them hunting in.
It was good to see her alight on the post with prey. It looks like this is a water boatman. I have filmed kingfishers feeding on a very varied prey from this location, over the last few years, including stickleback, dragonfly and damselfly nymphs, diving beetles and their nymphs, water stick insect and newts!
This pond is a good source of food and we keep it free of ice in the winter, so I am hoping the views we get of these beauties increases over the coming months.
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