Indeed, my best memories of all night fishing the Great Ouse are filled with those birds, electric blue flashes in the dawn light, so fast that they have gone before you've seen them, they are like an after-memory on the retina..absolutely wonderful to see...
Buy a kayak and paddle the backwaters of the Broads, you'll be amazed what you see away from the cretins (sorry, i mean holidaymakers) in their cruisers. Keeps you fit too. Joking aside (even though i wasn't) we are truly blessed in this wonderful county.
Couldn't agree more - spent a fair bit of my youth paddling the Wensum out of Trowse towards the Yare and Yarmouth. Plenty of nesting Great Crested Grebes in the reed banks and the occasional mardy swan to contend with, but it's a lovely way to see wildlife, close to the water - almost a pike's eye view of it - from time to time you'd see a pike jumping for an insect. Magic memories.
I've seen kingfishers regularly in the fine city, between Cow Tower and Fye Bridge (Ribs of Beef p.h.) Plus goldcrests, grey herons, common tern, grey wagtails, cormorants, sparrow hawks etc. I love them all (except feral pigeons )
We have Kingfishers here, but a different, less colourful species. Dark, shiny blue with a white chest and they mainly fish the shoreline.
