I read this wonderful news this week. Then today I saw the Common Kingfisher for the first time.  
 
It must be a sign! :-)) Hurray for my favourite bird species.

Gosh its a pretty bird! No small wonder its bird of the year 2009 in Germany!

Congrats on your Kingfisher sighting !!! 
How wonderful :-) 
I read about it.  
I never ever saw a KIngfisher here in Germany.

it is really a beautiful bird! I find it interesting that kingfishers are not easily seen in the Netherlands and Germany, Gwen, Katja, as you both suggest, is there a reason for this?

Yes, they are extremely rare and shy.

p.s. This has to do with their natural habitat, as Katja explains. Or rather lack of their natural habitat.

In the beginning of the 1970th something happened in Germany that was callled ''reformation of the landscape''. Rivers were some kind of ''straightened''. That involved a lot of stone and more important concrete. There were no longer steep slopes for breeding caves. The above mentioned species-richness was not longer existent.Birds and nature didn't have a big lobby back then.We still struggle with the impact of nature. It not only destroyed the habitat of birds like the Kingfisher etc.,but it also brings us floodings in the bigs cities along the big rivers like Rhine,Main etc..The water was pressed into small waterways or channels and had not the room to evade o the sides.A lot of things changed already , but it is still not enough. 
(Speaking only for Germany here.)

The same happened in the Netherlands. The past few years water management has been a hot issue here. Now we see a lot of work being done to regain the natural flow of water in NL.

ah okay, learnt alot about the straightening of channels in one of the subjects for my degree, in "modern day" environmental planning this is considered a definite no-no; this gives a very good indication of why! Thanx Katja and Gwen for the explanations ;-)

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