Venturing out into the world for the very first time takes bravery. For one baby kingfisher, plucking up the courage to take his first flight took a lot of coaxing and patience from his kingfisher dad.
Captured on camera, the intimate scene shows the little bird’s six siblings gamely hopping out of their nest in North Yorkshire, UK.
One by one, the kingfishers flew off, encouraged by their dad who was waiting with food. But when it came to the final sibling’s turn, the sweet fledgling seemed overcome with a case of nerves. After a couple of minutes, though, his dad succeeded in getting him to follow, and off he went, spreading his wings in the big wide world.
“They’re incredibly special,” Mr. Fuller told The Epoch Times. “They have huge personalities, and they’re great fun to watch. They’re so colorful as well; in the UK they’re probably our most colorful bird. One of our most secretive too—they’re quite hard to study.”
As someone who has studied this type of bird for many years, Mr. Fuller has deep knowledge of their habits, behaviors, and breeding patterns. In 2017, after discovering an entire community living in a riverbank, the wildlife enthusiast began carefully filming them with cameras hidden inside their nests.
Kingfishers start their courtship in March, Mr. Fuller says, and lay their eggs at the end of April. The eggs take around 19 days to hatch, and then, just a few weeks later, the baby chicks fledge (grow capable of taking flight). The chicks live in a small bed within the nest, with the father bringing a steady supply of fish.
“The parents actually live separately throughout the year and just pair up to breed,” Mr. Fuller said, “so there’s always a lot of tension there.
“Especially with the female, she basically just wants the male to supply her with fish as courtship feed. She’ll fly in and shout for him to go off and catch a fish to feed her—he’s got to prove he can feed her before they pair up properly, so she knows he'll provide for the chicks.”
Once the chicks are ready to come out, the male will stop feeding them in a bid to encourage them to leave the nest. This fledging process can take one to three days, with the dad chirping and calling his offspring from outside the nest.
The bright, eye-catching birds typically choose secluded spots along rivers, with lots of trees to hide in, for the chicks to begin fishing. Once they emerge, they start swooping into the water in no time at all. But there’s always one, says Mr. Fuller, that is more hesitant to take the leap and fly.
“They become a little bit more stressed, because they’ve been in the nest with the other siblings all that time, and it’s unusual for them to be on their own,” he said.
The lone chick will start circling anxiously, as demonstrated by the chick in the viral video. The moment they finally summon the will to spread their wings is a sight to behold—both for the filmmaker and his millions of viewers and subscribers.
The Yorkshireman finds the skill of the young kingfishers astounding:
“Literally a week after the fledging, there’s little kingfishers running around. Which is extraordinary because they’re not just catching a fly or an insect; they’ve actually got to catch fish to survive, which is a very skillful job. Right after fledging I’ve actually seen them punching into the water, practicing hunting.”
Quite often, by the time the first chicks are ready to leave the nest, the females are already occupied with a second brood. The parents then turn their attention to the new chicks, even going so far as to chase the first ones away.
“They actually become quite aggressive towards the chicks after about a week; they become territorial, and they start to try and push them out of the territory, which is fascinating as they go to all the effort to raise the chicks and look after them so well,” Mr. Fuller said.
Having built up a huge following of wildlife lovers, Mr. Fuller and his team are enormously thankful to be able to share amazing content with the world. The beauty and wonder of wildlife resonates with all kinds of people, transcending language and cultural barriers.
“Animals do have feelings,” he said. “They do have emotions ... and that’s what I try and show. There are a lot of people with autism, children struggling with learning difficulties, and people unwell in hospitals watching our content.”
For Mr. Fuller, who became interested in the creatures living in his garden at a very early age, the thrill of glimpsing a kingfisher never fades.
