Yesterday, my son and I went for a walk on a riverbank near Wakefield.  It was a beautiful September day and we took with us a stick from the garden.  At a point where the river was quite wide and slow flowing, Dean waded in and set the stick in the water.  Then, we sat and watched…

After a good hour, we were rewarded with the sight of a ‘common’ kingfisher who obliged by sitting on our stick.  The kingfisher is anything but ‘common’ and it is almost insulting to call him by his proper name.  Photographing a sitting kingfisher is not that difficult once you have found him but this one and, at times, a second one gave us some interesting challenges.  Check out the ‘British Kingfisher’ tab to see their antics, including a fairly acrimonious fight for territory.

Also providing entertainment was a young black headed gull who performed some pretty spectacular fishing himself in the same spot, a pair of grey herons and a dipper.