The King and I

WOW a blue flash across the Filter Beds this afternoon turned out to be a kingfisher. It was making shallow dives into the water so may have been taking insects. About 60% of food items are fish, but kingfishers also catch aquatic insects such as larvae or water beetles and in winter, crustaceans, including freshwater shrimps. Perhaps they also take amphibian larvae,  especially when the Thames is still in spate.

The bird remained for twenty five minutes on the same branch before I had to deliver my car from evil and also watch a burglar being arrested along the Portsmouth Road.

Kingfishers have been seen on the site only twice in the past.
During the Inspectors site visit (2002) a kingfisher flew over the filter beds making an easily recognised high-pitched piping whistle. However, it is the time of year and length of stay, which makes this siting interesting as it could be a breeding record. It cannot breed in the drainage holes (where sand martins have bred) as the water levels have  topped the holes  for the first time since the developers drained the beds (2010). If it is breeding in one of the vents, this indeed would be an exciting record.

So if you walk past look for a flash of blue, it may be the pipe that is sticking out of the basin. But if it is an even brighter iridescent blue, it might be the King. Cheers for grabbing the Canon Powershot Jill!

Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts

Most viewed

Heritage Trees part 2: street trees.

Image
  Oaks and maples Cambridge Gardens 2019   Street trees can often be the most beautiful objects in our streets. They are important to their communities as well as having environmental benefits. They are a living history in our landscape and can have particular connections. They may be fragments of a previous landscape incorporated into a modern street scene, such as the oaks at Cambridge Gardens once  part of the Duke of Cambridge's estate.  A great read with information on how to research street trees is a  History of Street Trees by Dr. M. Johnston.  London plane trees CRE 1976 Beech tree, Chesterton Terrace 1976 Studies show that the difference in local tree cover can reflect the various socio-economic groups. In Victorian times middle class areas were planted with many street trees or had higher quality front gardens than working class districts; now referred to as 'green equity'. It can be demonstrated by looking at old photos of the seven roads that were
Read more

Fishing the Hogsmill

Image
Fly-fishing the Hogsmill   It is interesting to see the river from a different perspective: the Hogsmill is popular with anglers at this time of year; although it is unusual to see someone fly- fishing. A chub has just been caught on bread and it looks a good size. Trout are sometimes seen in the Hogsmill and can sit in the weir notch by the school. Our own Richard Jefferies in his book 'Nature Near London'  remarked on the Hogsmill trout as far up as Tolworth Hall Bridge (now the A240). chub    This fish was carefully unhooked and orientated in the swim where it soon finds it way - probably to the next father and son - sitting further upstream. These anglers have caught the 'ghost' koi within the last two weeks and appear to be the second successful pair to catch the pond-escapee in the last few days. Ghost koi are a British invention. They were produced by accident in the early 80’s when a farmer allowed a mirror carp and a koi to spawn together. The offspring
Read more

Seething Wells: they've done it again

Image
The last day of May, I went to see if I could find the black redstart that had been widely reported, no luck but it will turn up again on one of the old buildings. The lush vegetation was looking beautiful between the Filter Beds at Seething Wells. I made a note of the breeding birds: goldfinches twinkling away, blue tits gathering food, sand martins flying over the FB's (only two this year unfortunately) moorhens and some scruffy little coot chicks entangled in the algal blooms.   Proud parents were showing off their four Canada chicks; they can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time they were soon feeding on water pepper and bistort gleaned from  the ziggerat-sided basins. A song thrush sang from the wharf alongside greenfinches as well as the seasonal chiff chaff; although this year all numbers are down, reflecting not only the topsy-turvy Spring but also the continued tumble in insect numbers (even seed eating birds are dependent on insects to feed their young).
Read more