Forest Farm Reserve near Cardiff is a great place to see and photograph kingfishers and the 'Friends of Forest Farm' who manage the site have placed branches by the two pond hides to encourage the birds to fish close to the hides. For such a small area, there is a surprising variety of habitat, from ponds, streams and a canal to woodland and meadow and all this encourages a heathy diversity of wildlife on the outskirts of Wales's capital city.
Although last Wednesday's visit was disappointing for Kingfishers, there was plenty of interest from other species of wildlife enthusiastically gearing up for spring and the chance of offspring!
It was good to see so many toads in and around the ponds. Frogs and toads have seriously declined in numbers over the past few decades but were definitely thriving at Forest farm, with many males swimming the ponds on the lookout for the much larger females, fat with eggs.
Moorhen too were collecting oversized pieces of reed to build up their untidy raft of a nest among the reed stems. The aim seems to be to build the nest high out of the water to guard against any rise in water levels and possible flooding of the nest.
Because moorhen, like coots, are so common, they are usually treated with disdain by bird watchers but they are attractive, colourful birds and amusing to observe going about their daily lives.
A close up view of a moorhen shows it to be subtly coloured in soft greys and browns with silver trim and set off with scarlet forehead shield and bill tipped with yellow and complementary red eyes.
Moorhen feed on plants gathered from the bottom of the pond or river and dive from the surface to reach their food.
Diving is a slightly ungainly process for moorhen and their oversized, yellow webbed feet seem more of a hindrance than a help but they only have to reach the usually shallow bottom and if they fail, well, they can try again.
Still waiting for the kingfisher, a number of other birds and animals came close to the hide, some too close to photograph. There was a time, in fact, when there was more going on inside the hide than outside. Robins, great and blue tits, a blackbird, a squirrel and even a nuthatch, all after a few crumbs from the sandwich box. The mallard stayed outside though!
Finally, a young magpie landed on the kingfisher's perch and posed for a photograph. Not the halcyon blue beauty I was hoping for but since magpies are surprisingly difficult to catch in any kind of pose, a satisfying shot for me.
Amphibious Affairs
Back at the pond edge there was toad drama as a big female and her chosen paramour were being persistently hassled by a second male trying to get in on the action and oust the current suitor.
The female was hopping as fast as she could with her amorous partner riding piggy-back and she clearly wasn't interested in a replacement but the second male kept on trying to get aboard.
But every time the intruder tried his luck, the first male kicked violently to throw him off, before they continued their bid for privacy.
Male frogs and toads, certainly in Europe, always outnumber females, so there is fierce competition to fertilise the eggs. So desperate are the males that large numbers of them will sometimes cling to a female and drown her because she cannot reach the surface to breathe.
And the kingfisher?
Well, the kingfisher did visit the perch twice while I waited but was too skittish to stay for a photograph. There were a couple of male buzzards battling for the skies above the reserve for a couple of hours so they might have spooked some of the birds including my quarry. So no kingfisher images today but here is one of the images from my much more fortunate previous visit a month earlier as a reminder of the beauty of this spectacular bird.
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