The ups and downs of R.Ouse Kingfishers.

I don't mean diving up and down by the way.

These lovely birds can be seen just about anywhere along the R.Ouse from source to sea but some of the little fish they eat can grow somewhat too big to handle by Autumn up in the countryside so many o them travel to Newhaven for the winter where there are several species of fish that that are naturally smaller than those in and about Lewes so you may see less kingfishers in Winter.

However, look what I discovered...

All the photos in this collage are one individual oposite the Winterbourne sluice gate into the Ouse and she (note the partially orange lower bill) was catching Prawns and baby Flounders, even though at low tide there is almost no salt water left there.

There are times when the river between Southease and Hamsey is awash with kingfishers but this is due to something not al folk know about.

Kingfishers don't live long, two or three years if they are lucky and as a strategy for the species to survive they they lay 3 or 4 clutches of four eggs a year starting in March right trough to October in a good year. the chicks are taught to fish then forced to leave by the parents and another brood is raised ad so on. That is why yu may see so many in summer around and about Lewes and less in winter. They may in fact be all of the same family. As Spring arrives however many survived Winter closer to the sea, and after some winters that may be none, will return. Then there is a battle for a nest site and as far as I know there are only three such sites between Hamsey and Southease.

They dig a tunnel a metre long in which they lay their eggs and it needs undergrowth cover and a vertical mud wall beneath it, too slippery for a rat or mink to climb up and high enough never to be flooded by tide of floods.

There are indeed a lot of ups and downs in the short lives of Kingfishers.