Kingfisher

“ Although glowing with metallic lustres, and beautiful in its adaptation and every movement, the kingfisher builds but a careless nest, a loose structure of dry fish bones—the hard indigestible parts of its food which, in common with birds of prey, it has the power of ejecting in pellets by the mouth. ”

“ And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak. They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the rod of a hidden fisherman. ”

“ A speckled kingfisher is seen nearly every hundred yards, which builds in similar spots, and attracts the attention of herd-boys, who dig out its nest for the sake of the young. This, and a most lovely little blue and orange kingfisher, are seen every where along the banks, dashing down like a shot into the water for their prey. A third, seen more rarely, is as large as a pigeon, and is of a slaty color. ”

“ The cry of the Kingfisher, uttered when he is disturbed, or when moving from place to place, and occasionally just as he is about to make a plunge, is loud and harsh, and resembles the noise made by a watchman’s rattle. This noise he makes repeatedly at all hours, and most especially at night, during the breeding-season, whenever he returns to the nest with food for his mate or young. ”

“ Even in our own day there is not a little fiction and absurdity gathered round the nesting habits of the Kingfisher. We are told that the bird is careful to make a nest of fish-bones for its eggs; this is a widely prevailing idea among persons who should know better, such as keepers, fishermen, and bird-nesting boys, for their experience is generally personal. Perhaps appearances have fostered, if they have not absolutely originated this belief. The Kingfisher pairs for life, and returns in most cases to the same place to nest season after season. ”

“ It is not at all an uncommon sight to see a kingfisher hover over the water after the manner of a kestril-hawk; suddenly it will descend with the greatest rapidity and again emerge, seldom failing to secure a fish for its dinner. "Did you ever find a kingfisher's nest, papa?" Willy inquired. Yes; some years ago I found one in a hole in a bank; there were four eggs in it, and I had to put my whole arm into the hole before I got at the nest, which consisted of sand mixed with a great quantity of very small fish bones. ”

“ A kingfisher, if he catches a fish which is a little too big for him to swallow whole, will knock the head of the fish, which he always catches by the middle of the body, against a stone, in order to kill it, or at least to stop it struggling; it might otherwise in its struggles escape, as the kingfisher can only swallow a fish head first. There are stories which tell how herons sometimes pluck small feathers from their breasts and, floating these feathers upon the water, catch the trout as they rise to it; it is supposed that the trout takes the feather for a fly. ”

“ There he crept cautiously along till his nose found the nest, and slipped down till his fore paws rested on the threshold. A long hungry sniff of the rank fishy odor that pours out of a kingfisher's den, a keen look all around to be sure the old birds were not returning, and he vanished like a shadow.
"There is one brood of kingfishers the less," I thought, with my glasses focused on the hole. But scarcely was the thought formed, when a fierce rumbling clatter sounded in the bank. The mink shot out, a streak of red showing plainly across his brown face. ”

“ Almost immediately a Kingfisher that had been shooting past stopped in air, hovered, and darting downward, came up with a Minnow in his beak, flew to a branch to swallow its prey, but no sooner got there when a Chicken-hawk flashed out of a thick tree, struck the Kingfisher with both feet and bore him downward to the bank—in a moment would have killed him, but a long, brown creature rushed from a hole in the bank and sprang on the struggling pair, to change the scene in a twinkling. ”

“ With the exception, perhaps, of a large blue kingfisher sitting in solitary state on a branch extending over the water, or a distant hornbill with its cheerful grandiose laugh, there are no evidences of animal life, nevertheless the exquisite scenery seems to lure the beholder on and on. ”

“ In the United States we think of the kingfisher as the belted kingfisher, larger than a jay, with a tousled crest and a voice like a watchman's rattle. But there are other species farther south in the Americas, and in the Old World there are still more. The tropics are their home. Only one species reaches Northern United States, and only one reaches Britain. But in New Guinea, for instance, there are about twenty-four of the ninety or so known kinds of kingfishers; the smallest tiny as a warbler, the largest nearly crow size. ”

“ Years are thus doubtless spent by these long-eared sunfish in a dreamy sort of existence, their energies quickened by the vernal season and growing duller on the approach of winter. Excepting the times when they are tempted by a wriggling worm on some boy’s hook, theirs is a life exempt from danger. A kingfisher glancing down from his perch on the bent sycamore limb may, at times, discern them and lessen their ranks; but, methinks, the chub minnows, with fewer spines in their dorsal fins, are more agreeable to the king-fisher’s palate. ”

“ The kingfisher digs a deep hole into the face of some earthen bank or cliff, and at the inner end hollows out a little cave where it lays several pure white eggs, with almost nothing but a few fishbones for a nest.
A good many different kinds of kingfishers are found in various parts of the world, one of them, which lives in Australia, being known as the laughing jackass, on account of its singular cry. Everywhere there are birds of brilliant plumage, and in some places they have been almost wholly destroyed for the wicked purpose of getting feathers to use as ornaments on ladies' hats. ”

“ Belted Kingfisher.—We found the species rather scarce on the river. This is probably accounted for by the cloudiness of the water which hides the fish. One bird was seen near Camp 4 near Nevis and Young recorded two at Camp 11 at Little Sandhill Creek. We have three birds taken by Geo. Sternberg at Morrin, August and September, 1915. Horsbrough records the Kingfisher nesting at Red Deer and Farley notes it occasionally at Camrose. ”

“ The Kingfisher, having once selected a situation for its nest, is very tenacious of it, and rarely forsakes it unless compelled to by too great annoyances. They will submit to be robbed time after time, and still return to the same spot and renew their attempts. They are devoted to their young, exhibit great solicitude if their safety is threatened, and will suffer themselves to be taken from their nest rather than leave it, and immediately return to it again. ”

“ The Grey Kingfisher is met with in almost every part of Africa, in Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and, we believe, in India; in Europe, as far as we can ascertain, it has only been seen in Greece and Dalmatia. Unlike the true Kingfisher, this bird exhibits a most social disposition, and prosecutes its search for food in spots constantly frequented not only by cattle, but by man. ”

“ These superstitions must have been very general among the ancients, and were not confined to the Greeks and Romans. Some of the Asiatic nations still wear the skin of the Kingfisher about their persons, as a protection against both moral and physical evils; the feathers are used as love-charms; and it is believed, that, if the body of the Kingfisher be evenly fixed upon a pivot, it will turn its head to the north, like the magnetic needle.
This bird is singularly grotesque in his appearance, though not without beauty of plumage. ”

“ Here in Yorkshire, Dipper, Gray Wagtail, and Heron may perhaps be the most familiar birds, but to our mind the Kingfisher is the most distinguished, and from some points of view the most interesting. We always think a special charm attaches to birds that have a place in ancient history, or that are surrounded by more or less classic legends and superstitions. The Kingfisher is one of these. From the very earliest times of which we possess any record, the bird, for some reason that to the modern mind does not seem always very clear, has figured largely in myth and superstition. ”

“ The female kingfisher often torments her devoted lover for half a day, coming and calling him, and then taking to flight. But she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking back as she flies and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he suddenly gives up the pursuit. ”

“ The kingfisher is by far the most brilliantly coloured bird in the British Islands; and those who see it living and moving with the sunlight on it can form an idea of the wonderful lustre of many tropical species, which certainly cannot be done by gazing on the labelled pellets of dead and dimmed feathers, called ‘specimens,’ in cabinets and museums. ”

“ The kingfisher has been a familiar bird in all ages, as he is not at all shy, and, when undisturbed, he will remain until you walk quite close to him. As his name implies his chief food is fish of his own catching, but he does not disdain the mouse or other animal small enough for him to grapple with. ”

“ It is said that few birds are connected with more fables than the Kingfisher. The superstition that a dead Kingfisher when suspended by the throat, would turn its beak to that particular point of the compass from which the wind blew, is now dead. ”

“ The Kingfisher, as has been observed, either digs, or selects a hole in some bank, as the scene of its domestic economy. It is always formed in an upward direction, that the accumulating moisture may drain off at the mouth. At the end, which is about three feet from the entrance, quantities of fish-bones are found, ejected by the parent birds, but whether these are placed there with or without design, is as yet a disputed point among naturalists. The prevailing opinion seems to be that the castings are purposely accumulated to form a sort of nest. ”

“ It is difficult to conceive why ornithologists have classed the kingfisher with land birds, as its habits and manner of living are wholly confined to the waters, on the margins of which it will sit for hours together on a projecting twig or a stone, at one while fluttering its wings and exposing its brilliant plumage to the sun ”

“ If small, the fish is swallowed whole; if large, it is beaten to death against a tree, and devoured with difficulty. When fish are not obtainable, the kingfisher will eat frogs and crustaceans, and sometimes grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. Fish, however, are his favorite food. [86]
The nest is as unusual and interesting as the bird himself. It consists of a tunnel excavated in a bank by the long knife-shaped bills of the kingfisher and his mate. A cavity of good size must be hollowed out to accommodate so large a bird and a family of from five to eight lusty youngsters. ”

“ This Kingfisher was found by White at Cosquin, where it is usually met with along the acequias, or canals made for the purpose of irrigating the cultivated lands. These canals are in places bordered with brushwood and trees, and are tolerably deep, with a swiftly flowing current, and abound in small fishes, so that this bird seems to prefer them as hunting-grounds to the rocky river-bed.
In Entrerios Mr. Barrows tells us this Kingfisher is not uncommon along the Lower Uruguay, and sometimes ascends the smaller streams a short distance. It is much more easily approached than C. torquata. ”

“ Borrer, in his 'Birds of Sussex,' records it last in 1870.—G.W. Bradshaw (Hastings) .
Survival of the Kingfisher.—I was interested in reading Mr. Farman's account of the rarity of the Kingfisher in the Norfolk Fens ('Zoologist' for August, p. 354) . Few matters ornithological have pleased me more in recent years than the abundance of the species, according to my experience. In this neighbourhood, within seventeen miles of London, the bird is common. Wherever I fish my experience is the same. ”

“ Perhaps a kingfisher will flash by or settle on a branch overhanging the water. Kingfishers grow more rare every year, owing to the merciless and unthinking zeal with which they are shot; and maybe before long there will be no more to be seen anywhere. ”

“ Fish is the principal food of the Kingfisher; but it also eats various kinds of insects, shrimps, and even small crabs. It rears its young in a hole, which is made in the banks of the stream it frequents. It is a slatternly bird, fouls its own nest and its peerless eggs. ”

“ The other point is, that although this Kingfisher is as big as a Thrush, with plumage of brilliant blue, bay, and white, and with a scarlet beak, it is not at all conspicuous when seen across the Museum tank (about sixty yards wide) , whether it sits on a bamboo, or on a dark-foliaged tree; indeed, if one's eyes are taken off it, the bird is very hard to find again. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the sole reason of the kingfisher migrating to the sea-side on the approach of severe weather, arises from the voracity of its appetite.
“They are quite tame and domesticated, frequently sitting on the head or shoulder of the person who is in the habit of cleaning out their little dwelling. ”

“ The kingfisher at times startles the English pedestrian when he is sauntering near a high-banked brook;—its gaudy plumage contrasts so forcibly with the sober tints of our English song birds, that he is at first inclined to take the gay fellow for a truant cage bird. But the fisher is quite at home, and is probably diving for his fish dinner. The kingfishers grouped in the two cases before which the visitor now stands, include specimens of the Australian brown kingfisher; the green and great jacamars of South America; the European bee eater ”