Ty Castell - Home of the Kingfisher
Ty Castell is Welsh for Castle House. It was first thought that our guesthouse was sighted near or on a old castle grounds but it was not the case. In fact Ty Castell has nothing to do with castles at all, however the name apply's to this old farmhouse today.
The farm house has a window which overlooks the staircase which depicts a kingfisher sitting on a branch overlooking the river Towy. This window casts a variety of kingfisher colours when the sun shines through it in the afternoon.
We discovered that kingfishers often appeared on the riverbank and when we took over the guesthouse we decided to use the Kingfisher as our logo and renamed Ty Castell, Ty Castell – Home of the Kingfisher.
The kingfisher is one of Britain’s most brightly coloured and interesting birds mainly 17-19cm long with beak plus 4cm. The call of the Kingfisher is a shrill 'tsee' or 'tsee-tsee' call, often repeated rapidly.
Kingfishers are not much bigger than a house sparrow and are very brightly coloured. They have bright orange underparts with a white bib. The wings are bluish-green and the back, rump and tail are bright blue. The kingfisher’s head is blue with orange marks in front and behind the bird’s eyes, and a white mark on each side of the head. The legs are short and orange in colour. The bright colours are most obvious when the bird is in flight.
Males and females are nearly indistinguishable, the female can, however, be distinguished by the orange coloration on the lower part of her bill. The wings and tail are relatively short, and the bill is long and pointed.
Common kingfishers are found throughout Europe, except the far north also North Africa and Asia. They live around streams, slow-flowing rivers, ponds and lakes. They feed on aquatic insects and small fish, such as sticklebacks.
Spotting a Kingfisher at Ty Castell needs patients, concentration and time as well as looking in the right place. We often see them flying up and down the river and more recently perched on our bird feeder. The best place to see them is opposite our garden bench, straight across the other side of the river where a clump of earth sort of sticks out, we think nests may be around this area, hence the constant sightings. We often see them first thing in the morning 7am onwards and late afternoon around 6pm, however guests have reported sightings at all times of the day.
Kingfishers hunt for fish in river, for a suitable fish. When a fish is spotted, the kingfisher will dive, beak first, into the water. The kingfisher has to rely on memory to predict where the fish will be after it has entered the water and will sometimes return to the surface with a stone in its beak if its prediction was wrong. After it has caught a fish it will fly back to its perch with the fish in its beak. The kingfisher does not eat it immediately and instead will beat the fish against its perch to kill it and then consume it head-first. Kingfishers will regurgitate pellets containing accumulated indigestible material such as fish bones. They perch on a favourite branch near to water and watch out, with their keen eyesight
Kingfisher courtship occurs in spring. The male will approach the female with a fish in his beak. He will hold it so that the fish’s head is facing outwards and attempt to feed it to the female. If he is unsuccessful he will simply eat the fish himself. He may have to repeat this feeding behaviour for some time before mating occurs. Kingfishers make burrows in sandy riverbanks. The burrow consists of a horizontal tunnel with a nesting chamber at the end and are usually about a metre long. The female lays about 6 or 7 eggs but sometimes will lay up to 10 eggs. The male and the female share the job of incubating the eggs for about 20 days. During the breeding season, kingfishers can often be seen hunting around the deep pools that form in the bends of rivers. These locations are rich in the young fish that the kingfishers feed to their young.
Kingfishers are very sensitive to cold weather and a particularly harsh winter can seriously reduce kingfisher populations.
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