Living The Wildlife

Kingfishers (4x1)

Air date: Mar 08, 2011

Our first port of call this year is our capital city. Flowing through the heart of Dublin is the River Dodder and it’s a wildlife oasis. This river is amazing, it is full of fish and to find wild brown trout thriving in a European capital is almost unheard of. And where you have lots of fish you have lots of fish eaters. Colin is on the trail of the elusive kingfisher. Not many people are aware that the Dodder is home to a healthy population of one of our most colourful and beautiful birds. He has wanted to film a kingfisher in Ireland since the beginning of Living The Wildlife. It is only really possible to film a bird properly when it is feeding chicks on its nest. That gives a wildlife cameraman like Colin the opportunity to get the shots he needs because the bird will behave in a predictable manner. Colin manages to track down the nest, gets his hide up and settles down to film. The kingfishers are completely unaware he is there and he gets some wonderful footage. But he’s not the only one who is watching these beautiful birds; John Keyes is a local amateur photographer and he has been watching this particular nesting site for three years and Colin enlists his help. Colin also wants to try something new. He wants to see if he can get a kingfisher to land on a stick he is holding. He has gotten his hands on what he likes to call an “eejit suit.”