Yesterday’s BirdTrack reporting rate graph was Kingfisher.
I’m not sure I would have identified this species from its reporting rate – it’s not a very common/obvious species because its reporting rate is quite low.
What happens in June – September? Is this when juveniles disperse and there is more whizzing around and indeed more calling? I’m really not sure – what do you think?
One of the things that these reporting rate graphs do, for me, is to make me think about the behaviour of the species and the behaviour of birdwatchers too.
What do you think this species is?
It’s probably just a reflection of changes in total numbers in the population. It’s an easy species to miss even if present on a site. As numbers build up through the breeding season it gets picked up more often. Then there’s a gradual population decline through winter due to deaths and perhaps also movements away from some inland sites in cold weather.
August was a good month for Kingfisher families “whizzing”, as you say, about on two of our ponds and the nearby canal outside Malmö in Sweden.