January's Photo of the Month

"It's good to share" by Moi Hicks

You were expecting a kingfisher weren't you?...

Now there were an abundance of brilliant kingfisher shots this month, with the visit of our resident wild female kingfisher to our main otter pond. A real nice variety too... some good close ups, some hunting, some placing her in the habitat. But what caught my eye the most were a few photos of some unusual things to see... I saw a photo of the kingfisher cough up a pellet, one of our red squirrels nose to nose with one of our muntjacs, but my favourite was this one above of a magpie sharing Emmy's fish, taken by Moi Hicks.

What a great spot! Often the wild herons and magpies come down at the end of the day to pick off the scraps of fish left on the bank by our otters, and occasionally I have seen a magpie perch in a tree above an otter waiting for them to finish... but this is the first time I have seen a magpie brave enough to hop down right next to one of our otters, and then just help themselves to the fish while the otter is still eating it! What makes this photo even better for me is that you can see a bit of the fish in the magpies mouth.

Great capture Moi! To see more of Moi's photos, follow the link in her name under the photo to her flickr photo stream.

Hope you like my choice for January, and keep your eye on the blog for new animal arrivals later this week.