Young Kingfishers

There hasn't been much to see at Bretton lately so instead of going to the hide I decided to setup at the side of the lake. I've long suspected that Kingfishers use this area but previous visits have all proved fruitless.

After half an hour it looked like today was going to turn out the same, until this one turned up.

  

The white tip to the beak shows that it's a young bird apparently.

It wasn't long before another one appeared and they decided to sit together. A sibling perhaps?

Suddenly one of them dived under the water and emerged with what looked like a Stickleback. I remember these prickly fish from my younger days when we used to catch them in the local park lake. I wouldn't like to have to swallow one though!

Before swallowing the unlucky fish it flew back to where it had left its sibling. In the twenty or so seconds since it left the perch another two, presumably from the same nest, had arrived.

And there they sat for quite some time until finally dispersing to do a bit more fishing.

I never knew Kingfishers ate Tadpoles...

...or insects!

It was really good to see this young family who were all finding food without their parents, whom there was no sign of. Although I thought I counted five of them at one stage so mum or dad might have been around. They stuck around for about forty minutes, which was great to watch but I got a bit trigger-happy with the camera and ended up with over six-hundred shots! Still, its not everyday you get to see one of these birds, never mind four of them.