first ever kingfisher (1 Viewer)

It wasn't a brilliant day in Nice south of France - quite overcast and dull so we decided to postpone our original plan to head inland
So we went to the Old Port area of Nice taking photos of boats and macros shots of rope and nets-I was just basically practising with my new camera.

Out of the blue, a kingfisher flew between my husband and I, landed briefly in front of us and neither of us were ready to take a shot!
i suppose that is typical.
Its a first ever sighting of a kingfisher and i was amazed at how beautiful it was.

i don't know if its a regular visitor or if it had just flown over from some fresh water somewhere

alison

Some of our UK birds (partic adults) will fly down to France / Spain. Our younger ones move down river towards the coast. They are sometimes a nice (NICE) surprise to see by the SEA! (Soz).
Henstooth

You get resident Kingfishers right across the Eurasian continent. They regularly overfly areas where you wouldn't expect to see them en route to a new area of freshwater so there's no reason why you wouldn't see one in the location you were in.

They're always a fabulous sight and they zip by so fast they're always a surprise unless you're by their nest site or a fishing spot.

Thats the magic of birds.When you least expect something,you get something to remember for life.

I used to see one almost every Sunday morning when I was but a lad doing my paper round perched on the bridge over the River Irwell next to Haslingden Football Club. It nested in the river bank there and if I was lucky it would be perched on a tree branch fishing for sticklebacks and minnows.

They're one of my favourite birds because they always bring back happy memories of times just lazily nature-watching by the river. I got to watch one fishing at close range while on holiday in France last summer just purely by lucky chance.

Like Ben says, you often get your best moments completely unlooked-for. It's just the habit of keeping your eyes open and tuned in that helps.