With their distinctive appearance, some social media users have even mistaken the birds for images generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
El Farsi, who captured a series of striking images, described how he spent hours waiting to take the perfect shot of the birds, which tend to favour quieter areas and can sometimes be challenging to photograph.
The birds, which are known for nesting in holes in old trees, are often found hiding beneath overhanging willows.
“They are very shy birds and they tend to hide,” El Farsi, from Birmingham, explained.
He said of photographing one bird: “I was waiting honestly for about two hours for it because it was swimming around one of the logs, just to perch on one of the logs, so you could get a portrait, like a picture of it out of the water.”
The birds have continued to attract attention from visitors and wildlife enthusiasts, with crowds visiting Sutton Park with their phones and cameras in the hopes of spotting them.
El Farsi, who first saw the birds in The Leasowes in Halesowen, returned to Sutton Park in October with his wife and children to see them again.
“People were coming from everywhere, Wolverhampton [and] all around the Midlands,” he said.
“As soon as we got there, my younger kids were running around. And as soon as they saw them, they were jumping around: ‘Oh, they’re still here, they’re still here, dad’.”
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
