I took these flying sparrow pics yesterday, practising really for such  an opportunity with a Kingfisher I have to confess that it was good fun and, as you can see, extremely difficult to freeze the action.  I also had the first chance to photograph a Greenfinch, a new one for my Wildlife on Alphin Brook Gallery. You can see it here.   Along with all the other birds recorded and photographed there.

Another baby Grey Wagtail came to perch and of course I too k a few photos just for the record really.

So that all happened on Thursday, so what of Friday………. read on!  

It isn't often that my day draws a total blank, in fact I can't remember going out with the camera for 3 hours and coming home without any pictures. I had walked along the River Exe this morning, without my camera but just  trying to get some exercise. It was quite fascinating when I got to the area near to where the Kingfishers nested at the beginning of the season. we heard at least two Kingfishers. We immediately sat down on the bank in the hope of catching sight of them but they went in the opposite direction and they stopped calling. But it was good to know that they are still active in their territory.  Very sadly the river is about as high as it could be at the moment and the Sand Martin colony is, for the second year running,  a total wash out. The nest burrows are completely under water and any youngsters in the nest burrows will certainly have drowned.  Adult birds and probably youngsters from the earlier rounds were attempting to get to their nests and were probably mystified as to why they couldn't get access. 

So exercise over, this afternoon,  I travelled out to the moor, set up the hide and waited for an hour and half. Not one bird came anywhere near.  I can only assume that as there is a lot of standing water in puddles at present, the birds have no need to visit the stream.  It certainly seems that way.  Very disappointingly I came home with no photos in the camera.  At just after 7, and back in Alphington, I went to the brook for the golden light that is always good for photography. I have found that there is a twenty minute period when the sun is low and the light is just perfect. As I approached my hide there he was, my Kingfisher. He was sat right in front , he saw me and left to perch  in the streamside vegetation. In the perfect conditions, he looked beautiful.  I quickly got in to the hide and waited for him to come back but he didn't……. what a shame.  The light was glorious and it would have been just perfect. My Kingfisher is his own bird. He will visit you when he is good and ready and not before, he calls the shots. Kingfishers are amazing, almost ridiculously coloured birds that live private lives and they will only share it with you when you are lucky and today, again, I wasn't.