By BILL CHAISSON
By Bill Chaisson
I see and hear kingfishers regularly, as I live next to the Lane River, which empties into a large shrub-scrub wetland in the middle of town below Sutton Mills. This past week I was driving back from the transfer station, turned onto Main Street and heard a loud, rattling call through the closed car windows and above the voices on NPR. I looked up to see a male belted kingfisher flying out of the wetland and I briefly saw him perch precariously on a powerline above the road. As I drove beneath him, I remembered an approaching anniversary.
Two years ago, on Nov. 11, my best friend passed away in his sleep. He was only 57 years old. I hadn’t seen Flemming for six years because he lived in Denmark, and I just didn’t get over there as often as I would have liked. Although he was always fond of the outdoors and he had been a writer and editor for years, it still surprised me when in 2007 he decided to write a book for young readers, “Isi in the Lost World,” about a kingfisher. Now, whenever I see our kingfisher, I think of Flemming and his.
Isi is a common or Eurasian kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), which is found throughout Europe. This species does migrate from the northern reaches of its range, but it only ventures as far as the coast and river valleys of northern Africa. For reasons of his own, Flemming had Isi go on a pilgrimage that brought him all the way to Madagascar by way of Jerusalem.
These little birds — they are only about 6 inches long — defend their territories fiercely because they need to eat 60% of their body weight in fish every day. So, each kingfisher needs to have complete suzerainty over a stretch of river or pond. A resident bird will attack an intruder, grab it by the beak, and try to drown it.
Because Flemming was Scandanavian, his description of the courting ritual between Isi’s parents was more graphic than you would find in an American book for middle-school-aged kids. Pairs actually form in the autumn, but they maintain separate territories over the winter and merge them in the spring. The bond is established by the male chasing the female around, calling to her continually. Copulation is preceded by ritual feeding. The nest is in a burrow excavated in a bank facing the water.
Kingfishers lay two to 10 eggs, although (again) for reasons of his own, Flemming made Isi an only child. He and I corresponded by email about what would induce Isi to leave home to go on his pilgrimage. As it happens, common kingfishers have two or even three broods per year, and, like the parents of nearly all bird species, kingfishers drive off the members of the first brood before they raise the second.
Flemming imagined the common kingfisher as a more K-selected species (see last week’s column), with Isi’s mother carefully teaching her only son to fish. In fact, this species is more r-selected, relying on laying up to 30 eggs per year and a minimum of care and instruction. Many fledgling birds don’t know how to fish and may drown before they figure it out.
I could see why Flemming was drawn to his own kingfisher. They are pretty little birds, bright blue on the head, wings, and back and bright rufous red on the chest and belly. They have a broad reddish stripe through the eye, and the undersides of their wings are washed with a rusty color. Flemming always liked small, intricately decorated objects, so I wasn’t surprised by his fascination with this particular species.
Our own belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) has relatively conservative, not to say boring, plumage and is more than twice the size of the European bird. Both sexes are slate-blue on the back and wings. The head above the bill is also slate-blue and topped with a ragged crest. But from the bill down the birds have a broad white collar. A blue band across the chest separates the collar from a white belly.
The females have a rusty belt below the blue one. It is unusual for a female bird to be more colorful, but this has been explained by the fact that they are hole nesters. Female birds are generally duller because they need to be camouflaged on the nest, which is not an issue when your eggs are a couple feet down a hole in the ground.
The belted kingfisher is found from the Arctic coast in Alaska across to Labrador and southward across the entire continent. They don’t breed in the desert Southwest or in the Rio Grande River Valley, where they are replaced by the green kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana) and the ringed kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata).
Like the common kingfisher, M. alcyon retreats from the northern part of its range in the winter. All they require is water that remains open year-round in order for them to fish. Like great blue herons, as the winter grows colder, they will gravitate to areas near waterfalls, outfalls, or fast running water. If all water bodies freeze over, then they will move south until they find a place to fish.
Kingfishers hunt like terns: they hover over the water and then dive beak first. Unlike terns however, they will often survey their domain from an overhanging perch and dive from there. In addition to fish, they eat insects. small crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, and even small mammals.
Near this anniversary, when I see our local kingfisher, I will think of one flying over a Danish pond somewhere on Bornholm, Flemming’s home island. And I will remember that like the belted kingfisher, I am larger and a bit dull, while Flemming was much more like Alcedo atthis: smaller, feistier, and a lot more colorful.
Bill Chaisson, who has been a birdwatcher since age 11, is a former editor of the Eagle Times. He now works for the Town of Wilmot and lives in Sutton.
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