Kingfishing

I had an early start to my photography this morning after driving Woodpeckers to work.  The sun was shining and I knew the poor light under the thick tree canopy over the River Frome would allow the best light in to the scene.

As soon as I arrived at Capel's Mill footbridge I saw the kingfisher flying up to and into its nest on the high muddy bank. But when it left the nest and flew downstream that was the last I saw of it for some time.  I hung around and was able to see it return several times with minnows in its mouth.  

It landed on the branch of a small tree growing out of the river bank giving me several opportunities to get static shots, which I have added to my 'Extra photos'.  But it is this image of it in flight a long way downstream that I wanted to blip.  I later noticed that whenever it left the nest it went straight to this spot about thirty yards away and dipped under the water.  I have read that their nest get very dirty when rearing young and I have surmised that it wanted to have a wash very quickly.

A young dipper also amused me when it pestered its parent for food relentlessly.  So i took  quite a few pictures of them and I have added a shot of the parent taking off from a quick trip under water searching for food.

I am so lucky to be able to see and record these scenes just a hundred yards from our Waitrose store which is a few hundred yards from the centre of Stroud.  I now want to get better shots of the kingfisher flying so I need to go downstream and find a sunny spot to sit and wait for a lucky moment.