James Tomlinson, artist, photographer, and stonemason spends much of his spare time birdwatching at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.
In these amazing pictures, he photographed a juvenile cuckoo at Castle Water. Cuckoos are rarely seen due to the decline in the their population which makes these pictures even more remarkable.
The quick movements and small size of kingfishers mean that they can be hard to photograph but James succeeded with this pair of gorgeous kingfishers that had returned to the reserve for the winter, perching and in flight. The male has an all-black bill and the female has some red at the base of her lower mandible.
Image Credits: James Tomlinson .
Thank you for this article, Juliet, showcasing James’s skilled work.
Kingfishers have had successful breeding in 2025 on the River Brede.
This will help compensate for the flooding of Kingfisher burrows in 2024, which resulted from the works at Brede Lock last summer.
Kingfishers are known to compensate following failure years in breeding, starting earlier in order to rear more broods in the season (source: The Kingfisher by David Boag).