Monday 1 August 2011

A slow, boring day, with nothing to see, but then...

This Sunday, I decided to have a wander around the Wetlands Centre. The sun was out and I was interested to see if anything else was too.

In a word, no. The most I could see was a couple of large Hawkers patrolling their territory, which I attempted to get a shot of. This is the best one I managed to get, which still isn't that great.


My girlfriend, Kelly, came to meet me and, at this point, I was pretty much ready to give up on the photos and settle for a cool beer.

I mentioned to Kelly that there had been a Kingfisher spotted at the wildside area of the centre earlier that morning, which she was very keen to find, as I was. So, rather than wandering around aimlessly in the hope that we stumble across it, we started to have a walk around the ponds to see if we could find the Heron we'd seen flying in a few minutes earlier. After a few minutes Kelly announced, "I think I've just seen something". What, exactly, she didn't say but then we both saw it; a flash of blue. A flash caught out of the corner of my eye was all it was but we were both convinced it was the Kingfisher, which was soon confirmed by a couple of bird watchers who said it had been flying around for a little while.

Alas, it had flown off and I, for one, was gutted. So close to seeing my first Kingfisher properly and the only photo I had managed to get was a blurry shot containing a jumble of unfocussed greenery with no blue whatsoever.  The bird watchers had wandered off to the other side of the pond and I thought the chance was over.

But then I was waved over to the other side of the pond and, when I got there, I was greeted with this.


An absolutely beautiful, bright blue, male Kingfisher. I watched it for a few minutes through a combination of my camera and my binoculars but, to be honest, it was a bit far away. So I decided to try to get closer, which meant climbing through the trees and undergrowth which wasn't ideal in shorts and t-shirt. It was definitely worth it though; I ended up about 2 metres from where he was perched.








And then, after about an hour or so, he flew off. That was ok though as I was perfectly happy with the time I'd spent watching a Kingfisher in the sun which was a nice 30th birthday present. He didn't catch any fish that we saw but then there will be other days to see that.

And anyway, it was time for a refreshing cider in the Red Lion pub garden, where a Robin stopped by to say hello.

3 comments:

  1. I adore your photos. I feel as if the bird is posing for you. Beautiful clicks:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Graham
    Superb kingfishers shots, they are wonderful. What a great way to mark your 30th
    Cheers
    Iain

    ReplyDelete
  3. It looks as though the kingfisher was as bored as you had been! Nice results, though. The robin's nice, too, real Christmas card material. I think hawkers in flight borders on showing off!

    BFN
    David

    ReplyDelete

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