Birds of a feather part II

Sad to say, this is my very best photo of a kingfisher by the canal. Unusually, it sat in full sight and watched us pass slowly by. More often, they go deep into the tree or bush to hide, or fly away to another such perch further ahead. They dart very fast and low over the water; a flash of amazing colours and great beauty. We've rarely seen more than one at a time.

When they're not hiding from humans, they're likely to be sitting on the lowest branches next to the water, from which they dive to catch fish or insects. They start breeding in their first year. Come mating and egg-laying time, they build a nest in a hollow in the bank of a canal or river.  They work together to dig out the burrow, choosing a vertical bank clear of vegetation, which provides a good degree of protection from predators.

Two or three broods are raised in quick succession. The first clutch of six or seven eggs is laid late in March or early April. Both adults incubate the eggs, and the chicks hatch about nineteen days later. Each chick can eat twelve or so small fish a day, and they're fed in rotation; once a chick is fed, it moves to the back of the nest to digest its meal, and the others move forward.

They're ready to leave the nest when they're about twenty-four days old. Once they leave, they're only fed for four days before the adults drive them out, away from their territory, and start the next brood.

Beautiful, aren't they? I've only just realised that they're related to the Australian kookaburra. Not so beautiful, but they laugh!

(Photos from Unsplash.com)

Birds of a feather

 We had an unusual visitor to our garden yesterday.

Okay, so the photo's not great, sorry. It's from someone's phone, and taken in a hurry. But believe me, it was a heron. It was very interested in our pond, and the newt and frog population might well be smaller today. It stayed there quite a while, and we were beginning to think that it didn't have enough space from which to take off, but it launched itself very quickly when Grace went down the garden to take a closer look.

It got me thinking about herons. Grey herons in particular. We've seen hundreds of them over the years.- maybe thousands, we've not been counting. They can be quite friendly, as is this one that appears to be resident at Berkhamsted Locks on the Grand Union Canal.

Usually, however, they're antisocial. They are waders, but they often stand at the edge of the canal, not in it, alone, hoping to see and spear a fish, and they fly away as soon as a boat approaches too closely. The silly creature hasn't worked out that if he were to fly away in the direction the boat has come from, he (or she) won't be bothered by it again. What he does, though, is to go on ahead of the boat, only to have his fishing disturbed again. And again and again and again. If  instead he wheels away over the trees and into a nearby field, he's on the lookout for small mammals and birds to supplement his fish diet.

Herons nest in big trees, in groups called heronries. These are often habitual sites that are revisited year after year, and may involve dozens of nests, spanning multiple trees. The largest heronry in Britain is currently in Kent, where numbers of nests are between 150 and 200. In this case, birds of a feather most certainly do stick together. They start to nest quite early, and it’s not unusual to see them sitting on eggs in early February, but nesting activity peaks in late March. After the chicks are out of the nest and independent, the male a female adults part company. (There's very little to distinguish between their genders.)

Another waterways bird is the ever-popular kingfisher, but those are far less seen than the heron. I might just blog about these beauties another time.

A brief but worthwhile visit

Back at the boat the following day, our trusty engineer, Colin, replaced the defunct radiator, released the seized valve on another, flushed the the whole system, and filled it with the required antifreeze/water mix and turned on the Webasto. The result was impressive. The rooms heated very quickly, and the hot water, too. The Bubble stove still posed problems, so Colin's seeking advice, but the stove's far from essential, so we're not in a great hurry.

    We topped up our card for our land-line electricity supply at the mooring. Unsurprisingly, the price per kilowatt/hour has gone up alarmingly, as has the cost of diesel and gas We only use gas for cooking, and each 13 kilo bottle lasts for months. Diesel is for the engine, of course, but also for the Webasto heating system, and the Bubble, which won't be used a great deal, anyway.

    We wanted to fill the diesel tank before the winter really sets in. Cold weather can cause water in the air in the tank to condense into the fuel, and that increases the chances of diesel bug growing and infecting it. In time, it can block jets and filters in the engine, and the Webasto heater jets. Filling the fuel tank to the very top gives little space for condensation. There was, however, no way we were going to be able to get across to the services platform in the very strong wind. Well, we'd get across okay, but not back!

   Taking Kantara across to the service platform for diesel is usually very simple. Reverse out of our berth, engage forward gear, point the bow at the platform, pull up alongside and moor. Yesterday, however, the very strong wind made that impossible. Getting over to the fuel pump would have been easy. The wind would probably have aided our travel, but pulling away again would have been out of the question. Many are the times we've seen boats pinned there, sometimes for hours, because of an adverse wind. It's happened to us a couple of times.

    The wind put the kibosh on doing any of the other jobs we had in mind, too. I was nearly blown off the gunnel while I was brushing the top of the cratch cover. A thorough wash of the roof at least was much needed, but the wind stopped us. All we could do was the fire safety checks; testing fire and carbon monoxide alarms, and the pressure in the extinguishers. A good shake up every month stops the powder inside from caking.

    On Thursday, we winterised Kantara, and returned home to the noise and dust of bathroom installers. It would have been lovely to stay and do some cruising, but the wind hadn't abated, and the number of closures and restrictions reported every day suggests that travelling any distance from the marina might well be slow.

    Fingers crossed for next year, eh?

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Bathroom, boat and baby

Well, we're still here. In the house, that is. We've been back to Kantara a couple of times, doing the Webasto thing and generally checking that the boat's not missing us too much. 

"Stern bilge dry? Check! Dehumidifier working? Check! Batteries charged? Check! No mould? Er... Check! Cratch cover okay? Yup! Stern skirt, too? And... check!"

We're going back again the tomorrow, actually spending two nights aboard! This is to oversee the replacement of a sludged up radiator in the cabin, and the fixing of a seized valve on another rad. And, if we're lucky, the removal of an unwanted thermostat from our old Bubble stove.

We'll be leaving behind the bathroom installers, who will start the job today. We've been warned that the process of ripping out the old will be dreadfully noisy. We hope to be missing the worst of it!

Being back at the house has meant that we've been able to see grand-daughter Nina lots.

First, her first birthday...

Then looking after her for five hours on each of five days.

We were quite tired by the end of each day's fun, too!

After a long period of lack of inspiration, I've finally got back to working on my latest book. This one's nothing to do with boats, canals and rivers. This one is about teachers, based very much on my thirty-seven year experience of teaching. Working title, "Those who can". It may not get as far as publication, but I'm having fun writing it. We'll see.

The bathroom fitters have started ripping out the old tiles and so on. The noise is awful! I'm off to plug some good music into my ears!

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