Hello All
It's fledging day for our first brood of kingfishers, however they weren't very keen maybe beacause of all this wind and rain. So we will keep an eye out tomorrow as well, but may have more luck as the weather improves. The young will fledge in the morning but it is very varied as to weather they hang around the bank or not, if they do it will only be for the max of the fledging day but is more likely that they will disperse around site quite quickly. The parents will only feed the young for a max of 5 days after fledging before chasing them out of their territory. Many young die in these initial days learning to fish. As our pair have already started to lay their second brood we will have a bit of an overlap, which is unusual. So we are waiting to see our first change over so we can calculate hatching day for this second brood.
Also around today swift which are now regular around the reserve, 2 hobby, black cap, little ringed plover and a few common tern. The ashby hide was nice today with lots of tufty and good numbers of pochard exploring the reed are looking for nesting sites, pairs of little grebe, canada goose, mute swan, gadwall and mallard as well as grey heron, reed and sedge warbler in the reeds in front of the hide.
I'll keep you posted on the kingfisher situation
thanks
vicky