On Sunday morning I managed a few hours out with camera in hand, it was quite a pleasant morning and for the first time in what seems to be ages I had no other distractions like checking and maintaining my owl boxes. This was to be just a few hours out with nature and hopefully some subjects would show and allow for a few images.
My main objective was to find some Little Owls, sadly after visiting several known sites not a single bird was either seen or heard. Whilst out it became quite noticeable just how many winter Thrushes (mainly Redwings and a few Fieldfares) were about, for the best part they would settle on one of the berry laden bushes and gorge themselves stupid, however, getting close enough to them to obtain an image proved to be quite a challenge. Trying to drive up slowly was a complete waste of time, as soon as I was with 30 metres or so they would erupt en-mass and move down to the next laden bush. After 30 minutes I gave up on this tactic and instead opted to park up near what seemed to be a favoured bush and waited for them to come to me. This new tactic proved to be slightly more successful than the last and the odd Redwing did come close enough for a few images (nothing good enough to share here though!).
Then to my complete surprise a Kingfisher suddenly appeared in amongst a small flock of Redwing! This was very bizarre indeed but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and a few images were rattled off. The Redwing didn't stay for long, they ate a few berries each and then off they flew again, but the Kingfisher stayed for at least 5 minutes!
A very strange encounter indeed, all my previous encounters with Kingfishers have been close to rivers, lakes, ponds etc and not in the middle of a field! Well that's all for now folks, maybe an update on how my Barn Owls have fared this year in the next post?
Catch up again soon...........
