I have been watching a Kingfisher nest for about three weeks. Every morning Mum and Dad catch a diverse array of tiny creatures and ferry them into the hollow tree trunk to feed their babies. As they fly into the hole with their prey the squawking of the Kingsfisher babies rises to a desperate pitch. I have been trying to work out how many babies there are from the sounds.
In the week before Xmas I noticed the parent birds would fly into the hollow with a spider or cricket and then fly straight back out again with the unlucky critter still in their beak and sit on a nearby branch ignoring the insistent squawking coming from the hollow. I thought they were trying to entice the babies out.
I visited the nest on boxing day and the babies were still in the nest. I came back the following day and they were out. The hollow in the tree trunk was quiet but high in the trees from all around were the sounds of baby Kingfishers squawking. The parent birds had never before seemed bothered by my presence but that day they were very unhappy, I was swooped several times by both parents, flying full speed at my face and only veering to the side at the last second. I backed off and just sat quietly to observe. There were three babies each one sitting very high up in a separate tree completely still. Too high to get photos. They didn't really look like babies, only slightly smaller than the parent birds, however the squawking gave them away. The parents were catching food for them and seemed to be trying to entice them to move closer to each other without success.
I have really enjoyed watching this nest am extremely happy to think the world has three more Kingfishers doing their thing in the trees by the river.
