Well before 7 this morning I returned to the hide that I have hastily erected in front of the Kingfisher nest on a river near to my home. Because of the need to keep disturbance down to a minimum I needed to be hasty and consequently it is a flimsy affair made from 5 "scrim face-veils" slung around stout willow sticks pushed in to the mud. It is camouflaged even further by willow pushed in to the ground around the edges. This morning it was 20 minutes before I heard the first Kingfisher of the day, a bird calling from up river to my right. Then I located it where it had perched, on the bank side just to the right of the nest. It appeared to be looking for prey in the fast flowing water beneath, I had seen it catch a minnow from this very same spot yesterday. It was the adult male and he continued to call almost constantly, a way of letting his female know that he was there. After a short while his attentions were drawn to something on my side of the river and he launched an attack on another Kingfisher that I hadn't been aware of, one of the juveniles from the first round. This bird flew back up river calling as it went with the male in hot pursuit. He is not tolerating any of his youngsters on the patch now. This is unfortunate for me because it means that I have missed the opportunity to photograph them being tended to and fed as they would have been for the first few days out of the nest. Minutes passed and then with more calling he was back. This time I saw a flash of colour as the female emerged from the burrow but that was all I saw of her, just a momentary fleeting glance as both birds flew down river to my left. Whether the male then did is incubating duties in the nest I am not sure, they fly in and out of the nest so quickly it is very easy to miss them arriving and leaving.

I returned to the hide at around 5. My first impression of this session was wonderment that Kingfishers actuallu breed here. The level of disturbance from dogs and their owners is almost constant and very worrying but as I know that young birds have successfully been reared to independance already this year then I can only think that my worries are unfounded. This evening dog after dog waas encouraged in to the water very close to the nest. I was quite sure that one of the pair was in the nest and this was confirmed later when during an unusual 10 minute period without dogs or people, the male arrived then called and the female appeared from the nest. I left at 7 with one dog in the water to the left of the nest and another in the water to the right!