The first few days after the first flight, we had little success in locating more than one young bird. It would always be high up among the leaves, and unless we followed the feeding male, it was hard to even locate the small one.

But it quickly developed strong flying skills and even started to poke around among the old bark searching for a snack.

One morning it was hard to keep up with the male, first he was on one side of the track, then, on the other. And it soon became clear, that there was two young. Which made sense given the amount of food that had gone into the nest.

They were hardly ever together so it was difficult to notice any distinguishing markings. But at least now the two seemed to be in the same area, so it was possible to keep track of them.

We were just about to take a morning break and moved to an old log for a cuppa, when on a branch just over the log a young Kingfisher landed. As we had just left two somewhere behind us, we suddenly realised. There were Three!
And as seems to be usual with birds with three in a clutch, two seemed close together, the third one much more an independent individual.

The young have a peculiar call, which is pretty much constant, and kind of hoarse buzzing, and the adult seemed to utter the same sort of call from time to time. Which did help to find them, now, among the scrub and tall trees.

Feeding went on apace, but the young were no slouch either and were soon making forays to help themselves.

One of the most interesting things was the markings began to change. The wing feathers are burnished with a rich bronze edge that seemed to become more pronounced as the days went on. Two of them had elegant white-eyelashes below the eye, while the other didn’t.
Perhaps is a id feature for the sex of the young, but I really don’t know.

Here’s a look at the week’s work.
Next will be the last post, as they began to work very much on their own, with Dad only offering supervisory advice from time to time.

Enjoy