Bonus kingfisher

I was watching dragonflies down by Lucy's Mill Bridge in Stratford this afternoon when a flash of electric blue caught my eye, streaking past me and then veering up into a tree on the island in the middle of the river. Knowing more or less where she'd landed I rapidly found her with the lens, but got off just two shots before she flew again; this was the first, and the second contains a blur of blue and orange with an almost sharp pair of feet in the middle.

Despite the distance at which I was photographing, and the heavy crop that this necessitated, it's easy enough to see that this is a female bird because of her red lower mandible (lipstick being the mnemonic). She's looking slightly scruffy because she's in the early stages of moulting, which both adults and juveniles do slowly between about July and November - but juveniles have duller colouring and tend to be greener, and the strong clear blue of this female's feathers and the clear orange of her legs and feet say that she's an adult. 

A keen birder I've met on the river bank before, and who stopped to talk to me again today, told me that the local breeding pair fledged two broods this summer, though sadly they abandoned a third attempt when a tree that overshadowed their nest bank was cut back at the wrong time (and thus most probably illegally). Juveniles become independent a few days after leaving the nest and then tend to disperse, with their parents driving them out of their territory to reduce the competition for food. Outside the breeding season these are solitary birds and each adult will strongly defend its own stretch of watercourse, though how big that stretch needs to be will vary according to the state of the water and the availability of food. Neighbouring birds that pair up to breed will temporarily combine their territories, before separating and becoming rivals once again.

Kingfishers aren't considered to be endangered in the UK, but the many threats and challenges they face - predation, pollution, persecution, degradation of habitat, and most especially winter cold - mean that very few of them live beyond two years old. It's sad to think that statistically this female has only a one in four chance of making it through to next year's breeding season.

If you'd like more information, I recommend Birdfact (which has especially good photos) and the BBC's Discover Wildlife. The RSPB is also pretty good on the topics of breeding, feeding and territory, and threats.