Had some really enjoyable birding at Tewinbury over the last three days. The water levels are low and the exposed mud has attracted up to three Green Sandpipers, three Little Egrets an occasional Grey Wagtail and a fairly regular Kingfisher that was hunting the steam that now meanders through the reeds and mud.
The attached sequence of five shots from Monday I thought might be of interest. Once the Kingfisher caught a fish it flew to a post and then proceeded to hit the fish against it. I took this to be an attempt to kill/stun it. In the sequence you can see the fish became impaled on the post, the bird then just looked at it. Looking round at the other strategically placed posts there were another two examples of impaled fish. Seems strange that the bird made no attempt to retrieve the fish, surely it has the dexterity to do this and I very much doubt it's squirrelling behaviour storing it's nuts away for winter.
Graeme
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