I spent more time in the hide today than i have ever done before. I went from 8.45 until 1030, then back home for coffee. Back again by 11 and home for dinner at 1300.  Then, from 1540 until 1810. Why all this persistence?  Well the light was perfect, I had a tank full of fresh minnows as you can se in the previous post, my wife was away for the day and I had a little radio to listen to the sport…. it is Saturday after all!

It was a relief when she  (the Kingfisher, not my wife), eventually showed up at 1750, and by then the light had started to fade a bit and by now, it wasn’t ideal.  But after waiting for so long it certainly was great to see her and know that my day wasn’t completely wasted.  So here is the story.

Like I have said, it was 10 to 6 when she popped on to the perch. She had  a fish which she quickly ate and I didn’t bother to train the camera towards her because the light wasn’t good and I have actually got a few hundred photos of her doing just what she was doing. I was hoping that she was going to notice the tank full of nice fat minnows and she did. She fluttered nearer to them and started to peer through the tank at them,very exciting I have to admit.  Then she flew up on to my hide and that was frustrating to say the least, she was only inches from my head but I couldn’t see her. I needn’t have worried though because she quickly flew over to the stick just above the surface of the tank and got very excited as she tried to work out what was going on. I kept my camera focused on the fish and water in the tank, then after several false starts, she eventually took the plunge, I rattled off loads of pictures in the second or so before she appeared back on the lower perch, and guess what/  She had only partially dipped her back and passed up on the opportunity of free fish! She is not stupid and decided it was too risky.  So I filmed a tank full of water! She stayed on the perch for long enough for me to get a couple of pictures, one isn’t too bad. 

These first ones are before she took the plunge.

Then after the ‘failed attempt” she pauses before flying off to fish down stream.