It's now a tense few days at the nest site with the nestlings surely ready to fledge very soon. We are in the middle of a warm spell of summer weather with hot, bright and very sunny conditions. I spent 3 hours at the nest this morning and in that time both birds were delivering fish to the burrow regularly. A few times the female perched on the mud beneath the nest and then lingered with a large fish before she entered the nest and fed the youngsters. This is all pretty much the same as I have observed for the last week with not a great deal to add. The excitement of the chicks fledging the nest is about to happen and this should hopefully give me some great photo opportunities. I am hoping for interaction between the adults and young. We have had some disturbance from fishermen this last few days and I have contacted the Wildlife Crimes Officer at the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. He offered me some guidance as to how I should deal with these potential nest threatening disturbances and both yesterday and today I asked people to move away which I am glad to say, they did willingly. Hopefully, over the hot weekend we won't have further problems.
The only other things of note today was the female who as she perched beneath the nest with a fish was suddenly disturbed by a dog walker just above her on the bank. She flew over to my side of the river still with her fish and then when the coast was clear, flew back and went in to the nest. On another occasion she entered the nest when people were splashing about no more than 30 metres away proving that even though Kingfishers are said to be easily disturbed, their instinct to feed their young is even stronger. It could be that this busy area is a good place to breed because predators such as mink and weasels may be reluctant to frequent this area. The only threat to their safety now I believe is a sudden flood. A spring tide is due on Sunday and Monday fingers crossed it won't flood the nest, it hasn't so far so things should be OK.