Farewell my fine feathered friends.

I'm very sad to say that this female and her mate have deserted their nest site under the Winterbourne footpath bridge behind the Linklater pavilion in Railway Land nature reserve, Lewes because of an accidental disturbance and are almost certainly both dead by now. Here's why; and there is a happy ending to this tale.

Have a close look at the photo I took in the first week of March 2023. You can identify a female Kingfisher by the faint orange glow on her lower bill just where it emerges from her plumage. Also note the mud on her beak, she has been digging or at least clearing out the nest chamber, telling me that she was about to lay her first clutch of eggs of the year. Kingfishers only usually live to be about three years old and have many difficulties along the way.

The problem in 2023 was that the long awaited restoration of the Winterbourne stream began just two weeks into the first egg laying slot and the restoration team parked up all the machinery and stock on what was named Kingfisher corner after I had successfully crept there with several groups during the 2022 Love or Ouse festival and managed without disturbance to show everyone the kingfishers without disturbing them.

They abandoned their nest that year 2023 and did not return and nor did they this year 2024 either and by now they will simply have died of old age poor things.

Kingfishers are afforded extra protection above and beyond the norm, they are on the schedule 1 list of the Wild life and Countryside act 1981 with unlimited fines and up to 6 months in prison for disturbing them during their breeding season at least. I would have thought the workmen might have had, as is required by law, a nesting bird survey done by BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) officials but maybe by bad luck the pair were along the river fishing at the time?

I'm not going to follow this up and have to say that a fantastic job was done on the Winterbourne stream and actually I was myself unaware of these laws at that time.

Other problems that these birds have;

They are so brightly coloured that they are an easy target for birds of prey such as Sparrow hawks and they must hatch a brood of chicks three times a year to keep the species from extinction. The first in March and it takes approximately a month to incubate the eggs, another month for the chicks to be ready to leave and then the parents literally chase them away and start another family until and perhaps as late as October when they are exhausted. They and each of their usual 4 chicks per brood, need to eat their own body weight every day!

Good nest sites are very scarce here in and around Lewes. These birds are shy and need somewhere secretive with cover. The river bank has to be higher than the highest high tide level so that the metre long burrow that they dig for the nest chamber isn't prone to flooding and it has to be on a vertical or overhanging bank to make it difficult for predators such as Rats and Mink to get to the eggs and/or chicks.

Food has to be not too far away so as to avoid crossing into another Kingfishers territory as fights often end in injury or fatality And here comes the happy ending...

two years ago I was asked by the Phoenix group in north Street, now known as 'Human Nature', to take out two walks and talks re' the new Eco housing project. One to show the staff and one to show the public what lives there what problem we all might encounter and what can be done or at least planned to be done, one of which was artificial nesting boxes built appropriately into the proposed new flood defence river embankment. Fingers crossed for that and to the return of the next generation of local Kingfishers in the Winterbourne stream and finally I can finish my film to help protect them better in the future. Bye for now, Steve