This series involves an area that we love with beautiful paths and walks in the Hampshire countryside along with our love of birds. Each cache has information relating to a different bird, many of which will be present along the trail. The First Time Finder is a key fob featuring each particular bird apart from the micro caches which are all creatures that sustain our bird life. The information is provided by the wonderful book 'Tweet of the Day' by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss. We hope that the walks and information encourage others to learn about the wonderfully diverse bird life that we enjoy.
Kingfisher:
A sharp, metallic whistle by a lake or river is a cue to scan the water’s surface and surrounding bushes for its maker. More brightly coloured than any bird deserves to be, kingfishers are nevertheless usually given away by their call, which is followed by what looks like a missile whizzing by, wings whirring as it goes. They are so quick they are like a radar trace against the poolside willows, so bright their after-image feels seared on the retina. Few birds fly quite as straight as the kingfisher; and none shares this combination of beauty and brilliance in miniature. For it is a tiny bird: no bigger than a starling, with a stump of a tail, an outsize head and a dagger of a bill, which always looks too big for the bird to carry. If you can approach closely enough, a kingfisher shimmers with aquamarine and turquoise above, set off perfectly by a white throat and rusty-orange cheeks and underparts, reflecting the dappled movements of the river below it. Kingfishers are well and truly tied to water, building their nest in a burrow deep in a sandy riverbank, and bringing in more than a hundred fish every day to feed their hungry brood. The resulting accumulation of bones and fish offal produces a stench that is somewhat at odds with the bird’s smart appearance. Kingfishers always seem as if they are in a hurry – and they are. They rarely live longer than a year or so, and are very vulnerable to the weather: droughts, floods, snow and ice can all reduce their chances of survival. So to compensate, each have up to three broods of half a dozen chicks in a single season, the young rapidly gaining independence as soon as they leave the nest. The ancient Greeks called the bird the ‘halcyon’ and believed that the female built her nest on the waves, calming the seas while she brooded her eggs. This gave rise to the expression ‘halcyon days’, which we now use to describe a time of calm and tranquillity. But for many of us, our reaction to that all-too-brief flash of colour and movement is anything but tranquil.