Being rather surprised to have been visited by a Kingfisher, I took the approach that it may not be a one-off. Though we seem to be far from what I would have expected to be a more natural habitat, clearly it is around for a reason. So I put up a few perches near the waters edge. Bear in mind the two ponds cover an area no bigger than a swimming pool, it probably wouldn’t need them as there are two small trees nearby.

I didn’t have to wait long before another sighting and immediately it flew between one particular perch and the nearby tree.

The following sequence of images are one successful fishing trip, actually into the small pool that feeds the waterfall. The pond filters are connected and clearly some eggs had passed through the filter and settled in the waterfall feeder pool, hatched and grown to about 2-3 cm. I missed the dive into the pool because it was perched in the tree and I was set up to capture it in the process of landing on its preferred perch.

The first shot I captured was beside the waterfall with its catch, then it’s take-off to the perch.

Light was good but low evening sun on an iridescent bird is harsh to control. I was able to get 1/2000 to 3000 so shutter speed on full aperture and iso around 1000, so I stuck with those and concentrated on the metering and exposure compensation. I did set the Dynamic lighting to Auto, as I knew I’d not have time to fiddle and it definitely needed some level of control.

It returned to the perch with its fish and paused. When it started rearranging the fish in its beak, I fired a couple of 5 shot burst using Single Point focus, which covered the entire process of consuming the fish. It flew off immediately, perhaps disturbed by the camera shutter noise.

Rearranging the fish.

Juggling it head first……

…..and Swallow.

It’s returned since. Actually it’s pretty obvious it has visited and reduced the fish stock considerably already. Difficult to tell as the remaining fish gave taken to hiding, plus the water is now very cold. However, not all of the 15 original adults are left, there are no fish in the waterfall pool and the 10 to 15 new ones from this year, all about 2 to 3cm are nowhere to be seen.

There were at least two separate ages of fry and the very small ones are still there, though in ones and two’s, not a shoal.

Hoping it returns so I can get some in-flight shots and maybe diving and catching.