Hide and seek with a belted kingfisher

After no reports for about two weeks the belted kingfisher at Roach Bridge was seen again over the weekend so I thought I'd give it a go for a year tick and maybe get some better photos. With the farmer AWOL there's been no entrance fee all week so I've been there for the past three days. The year tick part of the plan turned out fine and I saw it every day and had some decent views of the bird but it's been hard work, whilst the photography part of the plan only produced more of the same really. The photo above from today is about as close as I've come to getting anything like a decent picture of the bird, pity about the branches. I like the picture though because I think you get a good impression of the size of the bird which is twice as big as a common kingfisher and around the same size as a jackdaw.

Since the weekend the kingfisher seems to spend the first hour or two after sunrise tucked into the wooded cliff right below the viewing area (the roosting area?), making it really hard to see, and then from about midday it moves further upriver and is viewable at a distance of about 500m. In the afternoon it flies back to the cliff and again is tucked in so tightly that it could be just a few metres away from you and you wouldn't notice it. I've only heard it call occasionally so you wouldn't even know that it was there most of the time.

On Monday the bird had disappeared when I arrived and I had to wait three hours for it to show. When it did it was a decent enough scope view in good light but way too far for a decent photo. The photo above was taken on 60x scope magnification and 20x phone magnification. After five minutes it disappeared.

Two hours later there had been no further sightings and the crowd had dwindled to about eight people. Most were standing in the eastern corner of the field looking towards the distant bend in the river where the bird had last been seen, but in an attempt to get the blood circulating again I decided to walk 100m downriver to the other viewing area which is closer to the river. Almost as soon as I got to the area with the first clear view of the river I saw it flying away from me towards the weir. It was gone in seconds but was a nice close view of the bird so I was well pleased with that. How it had got past us and back to the cliff was impossible to say, nobody else had seen it fly in. We searched in vain for another hour before I decided to call it a day. I'd seen it for about 5 minutes over a period of 6 - 7 hours and most of the time it was on view it was 500m away.

I wasn't planning to go back yesterday but in the end it was that or daytime telly so I headed back again. This time it was still in the roosting area when I arrived but it had moved to an area which was impossible to view. However, eventually it must have moved because somebody saw it sitting in a sycamore tree and got us all on it. This was the closest view I've had of the bird but it was obscured by branches and it sat there for not much more than 10 seconds before flying off right. Like Monday I was chuffed with the view even though I hadn't even had time to raise my camera. Finally about an hour later I found it again, once more fishing in the same distant area as Monday nearly 500m away. I could see a familiar pattern developing so I watched it for five minutes and then left.

This morning I got there a little earlier and the bird was sat in the same sycamore tree. Frustratingly again it was partially hidden by branches but at least it sat there a little longer before flying 100m up river and giving us all a decent scope view for five minutes. Then at about 9am it flew much further upriver and I decided to call it a day and headed to Martin Mere. 

It's been really quite tough this week, in three visits amounting to about 12 hours watching I saw the bird for about 20 minutes at most. However, it's been a fantastic experience reconnecting with this bird and I've had some wonderful sightings which will stick long in my memory even if I didn't get the photos I wanted. There's always tomorrow.

The River Darwen.