What a fantastic morning we have had in Moore Nature Reserve! It was our first time visiting, and again was around 20 minutes drive from home. Who knew so many great places existed so close to home?!
We arrived soon after 10am and almost immediately came upon the first of 4 bird hides.
There was a man with a HUGE lens on his camera and he was obviously an experienced twitcher. He signalled for us to be very quiet and low as there was a kingfisher on the little island.
He explained that it had only just arrived and wouldn't come any closer unless we were very quiet and still. So we waited a few minutes, and after an encounter with a heron, he came much closer to the hide to fish.
We sat and watched for around 15 minutes - he caught 3 fish. I was very unprepared with my camera and didn't want to scare him away by moving, so only managed a few shots after he flew off for a moment.  And then he was gone :(
But it was a magical few minutes. I've never seen more than a flash of a kingfisher before, so this made my day.
We subsequently found out from the twitcher that he had been there for 3 hours already that morning, and this was the first time today the kingfisher had been seen and he probably wouldn't be seen again today as he doesn't come to Lapwing Lake much. How lucky were we? :)