Kingfisher, River Stour!

Around Christmas time I was informed of a reliable Kingfisher site situated along the River Stour. For a long time Kingfisher has been high on my list to photograph well bu5 despite trying hard at various locations they always seemed a bit too skittish or no real pattern. 

Before Xmas I tried Anton Lakes in Andover as they usually have a regular showy female but due to mantainence work on site the bird seemed to have moved on so I was very keen to get down to the River Stour. My 1st visit was with my daughter so I was limited on time however I did get some stunning views and at the time I thought pictures. 

On my 2nd attempt I had more time therefore managed to understand the birds habit/routine a bit more and this time I decided to get lower on the riverbank itself to get a cleaner background and also level with the post it was using. This made an incredible difference in what the pictures looked like and my photos from my first visit really are not worth posting. 

On my 3rd visit there still felt like something was missing and looking back at my images I decided that the post it was using wasn't ideal and was quite distracting in the images. I crawled down the bank to take a closer look at the post and stuck out the back there was 2 obvious bolts with a thread, ideal for a branch to be placed across.

With this in mind I went off into the woods searching for a suitable stick. It didn't take long so I went back down and placed it across the bolts and waited. It didn't take long and on the Kingfisher's next visit it landed straight on my stick. I was well happy with this and was firing away like crazy. It eventually dived and returned to the stick but this time with a fish. Again I fired off a lot of pics and I'm sure you will agree these look even better than the ones before. Since posting these people have now cottoned on and have done it themselves which is pleasing but equally annoying as now there is always lots of photographers and always on the bank, so basically unless you don't work it isn't great. Hopefully they will continue to show and I can get back at some point and perhaps try out some different type perches. 


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