What size fish can they get? Is any size fish relatively safe in a pond

They will get any sized fish they can fly with. They need a perch where they can sit and watch the pond then dive and get lunch. No perch---no dive. Herons will wade in and take the lot.

It's usually herons that take goldfish. They are big, greedy and will keep coming back untill they empty a pond

NZ kingfishers may take small ones, but their main food is large insects like crickets or wetas and lizards. They dont seem to be as keen on getting wet as the overseas species.

Cheers

Ian

Unfortunately there are perches galore and I am not keen on taking out the 120 yr Puriris

Are there any scarers or other devices that can be used - I can net the ponds but not terribly aesthetic.

What sized ponds are they?

You could try stringing a couple of lines crossed over using fishing line (which you wouldn't see) and see if that deters them.

Or like we used to do with our cherry tree down south - hang a dead bird over the pond (even less pleasing to look at) but sure works.

I hear a replica heron beside a pond will keep others away but don't know about kingfishers. They may be small birds but they can take a goldfish at least the same size as itself, if not bigger. My dad was plagued by one years ago and in the end chopped down the tree it was perching on.

the replica heron thing is a myth. All it does is signal to other herons that there may be good feeding there.

Personally I'd love a kingfisher visiting my ponds.

A replica heron would be the same as a replica duck in the shooting season. Coelacanth is on to it. Put a hollow log up in the tree for a nest, sell your expensive goldfish and restock with el cheepo kingfisher tucka---sit back and enjoy. Many moons ago I was walking along the riverbank and heard scuffling and cheeping from a hollow branch and figured it was a nest. Curious to see what a baby looked like I put my hand in and Mother was there and very unimpressed. They have very strong and sharp beaks---my hand was not in there long.

well personally I love kingfishers too and I am not interested in dispatching them .... just discouraging them.

Sounds like there's not a lot that can be done.

the shags are worse they will damage the fish by stabbing them and then realise they can't swallow them and just leave them to die!

what about a net over the pond?

a net is the last alternative - I can do that but would prefer not to as it ruins the aesthetics of it all a bit.

It was my understanding that kingfishers could/would only take theycould fit in their mouths which arent that big - there seems to be different ideas about whether thats right or not

Stand in the middle of the pond waving a stick and yell 'Darty Varmits' as loud as you can...

cONCH could be onto something there.

im sure you could repell birds by using high frequency (sp) sound

Or rather than putting a net over the entire thing if you make it hard for the kingfishers to dive/swoop safely they apparently won't. So i guess you could do this by putting a strip of net or a line of string across the pond so that the kingfishers don't find it as easy/safe to catch their tucker there.

I personally use bird netting as i have a cat who loves nothing more than to go fishing - along with all the strays!

try a sheet of glass,say one metre square and prop it up with bricks etc at each corner so its just below the surface,they don`t like this at all!!

arnt king fish da 1s u catch in the sea?? lol

Or rather than putting a net over the entire thing if you make it hard for the kingfishers to dive/swoop safely they apparently won't. So i guess you could do this by putting a strip of net or a line of string across the pond so that the kingfishers don't find it as easy/safe to catch their tucker there.

I personally use bird netting as i have a cat who loves nothing more than to go fishing - along with all the strays!

We have the same problem with our pond, i was thinking of trying this too, just net the top of it, then they cannot dive/swoop into the water.

we have both herins and kingfishers here, and they can take big goldfish too, we had four nicely sized fish (size of a block of butter+? (lol, only way i could think of sizing it)) and they took three of them, and we found one dying.

now i think we are going to put all of our turtles in there, but its abit expensive to try without a net (incase they grab them too, or even the hawk's) but we'll see.

getting the digger in again this week to landscape the pond/area a little more, and get some plants/rocks and such arround the pond.

but the net would definatly (sp) ruin the whole niceness of it, but at the end of the day a pond full of plants/lillies just wouldnt look as good as if it had fish/turtles in it.

You could try using bird scarers - like a scarecrow or a hawk silhouette.

Some people use dangling shiny or waving things - old cds hanging so they spin and the light apparently distracts/repels the birds. Strips of cloth or plastic tied to a fishing line across the pond is enough to stop some kingfishers.

Good luck!