This week the volunteers started work on a wattle fence to form a screen to reduce disturbance to a kingfisher nest site. Wattle is a fence made from vertical posts put into the ground and interwoven with, in this case, twigs of willow and alder trees. These twigs came from pollarded willow and alder trees on Winnall mores where the trees were being kept trimmed to maintain the open nature of the water meadow and provide a variety of perching and nesting sites for birds when they re-grow. This makes the fence very sustainable as the materials were all locally sourced, also the fence is completely bio-degradable and when eventually the fence does rot away it will provide a home for numerous mini-beasts such as woodlice and wood boring beetle grubs.
Kingfisher nest holes in the roots of a blown over tree
The sight of a kingfisher flying along a river can add a dash of colour to the grey-est autumn days. However, Kingfisher wings do not actually contain any blue pigment, the colour comes from light refracting off the structure of the feathers and is called the “Tyndall effect” from the scientist who discovered it.
John gathers willow to be weaved into the wattle fence
As a chalk river fed predominately by an aquifer the Itchen has stunning clear water which provides perfect habitat for Kingfishers, they prefer rivers and streams with clear water so they can see their prey of small fish more easily. However, due to the man made channel that the Itchen now runs through there is a shortage of vertical river banks up to 2 metres high which kingfishers need to burrow a nest into. Amazingly kingfishers excavate a tunnel 60-90cm long at the end of which the create a chamber 15-20cm round with a slight depression in where the eggs are laid to and the young kingfishers develop. The depression in the chamber is to stop the eggs rolling down the tunnel which is dug sloping back to the river so that the chicks waste runs down hill out of the nest! Normally 6-7 eggs are laid in spring, these hatch after around 3 weeks with the chicks normally ready to leave the nest after 24 days.
Volunteers take a breather after starting the wattle fence
Hopefully this spring the kingfishers will nest again after the efforts of the volunteers to protect them from disturbance.
Kingfisher by Phil McLean
Back to Nature at Winnall Moors 