Bethany, Brooke County, West Virginia, I saw a Kingfisher
fly rapidly across an open field from a near-by deep
pool in Buffalo Creek. Wondering that it should thus
cross overland, I watched it as it flew to a large, dead
sycamore, not far from me, and disappeared in a hole at the
end of a short, thick, horizontal stub. Upon going to the
tree I heard the buzzing cries of the young birds. Shortly
thereafter the male parent flew away as the female came in.
The nest was located about ten feet from the ground in a
large cavity near the juncture of the bough and the main
trunk. The young birds were lying about seven feet from the
entrance. The cavity was almost as dark as a bank burrow
would have been. It is odd that the Kingfishers chose such
a site for their nest, since earthen banks admirably suited
to their needs were available along the creek.
_Eggs._--The number of eggs laid by the eastern belted kingfisher
varies ordinarily from five to eight, the commonest numbers being
6 and 7; on rare occasions as many as 11 or 14 eggs or young have
been found in a nest. If the first set of eggs is taken, the birds
will dig another burrow, often within a few feet of the first, and
lay a second set; sometimes a third, or even a fourth, attempt
will be made. But only one brood is raised in a season. The eggs
are short-ovate or rounded-ovate in shape; the shell is smooth and
rather glossy; they are pure white in color. The measurements of
54 eggs average 33.9 by 26.7 millimeters, the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =36.8= by =27.9=, =30.8= by 26.4, and 33 by =25.4=
millimeters.
_Young._--The incubation period is said to be about 23 or 24 days.
Bendire (1895) says:
The male does not assist in incubation, but supplies his
mate with food while so engaged, and she rarely leaves the
nest after the first egg has been laid; at any rate I have
invariably found the bird at home if there were any eggs in
the nest. Incubation lasts about sixteen days. The young
when first hatched are blind, perfectly naked, helpless,
and, in a word, very unprepossessing. They scarcely look
like birds while crawling about in the nest, where they
remain several weeks, their growth being very slow. The
excrement of the young is promptly removed and the burrow
is kept rather clean. They utter a low, puffing sound when
disturbed, and frequently vary considerably in size, as
if incubation, in some instances at least, began with the
first egg laid. The young, even after they have left the
nest for some time, require the attendance of their parents
before they are able to secure subsistence for themselves.
I believe that Bendire’s statement above, that the male does not
incubate, is incorrect; perhaps he may not do so regularly, or to
the same extent that the female does, but several observers have
reported finding the male on the eggs, or at least in the nest.
The young remain in the nest for about 4 weeks or more, and do not
leave it until they are able to fly.
William L. Bailey (1900) made an interesting study of a family of
young kingfishers, by digging a hole in the rear of the nesting
cavity on four different occasions, taking photographs of the young
at four different ages, and filling up the hole each time, so as
not to disturb the birds too much. He says that when the young
were about two days old they “were not only found wrapped together
in the nest, but the moment they were put on the ground, one at a
time, though their eyes were still sealed, they immediately covered
one another with their wings and wide bills, making such a tight
ball that when one shifted a leg, the whole mass would move like a
single bird. This is a most sensible method of keeping warm, since
the mother bird’s legs are so short that she could not stand over
them, but as they are protected from the wind and weather they have
no need of her. Their appearance is comical in the extreme, and all
out of proportion. This clinging to one another is apparently kept
up for at least ten days, for a week later, when nine days old,
they were found in exactly a similar position.”
On his last visit, when the young birds were 23 days old, he made
an interesting discovery, of which he says: “Taking the precaution
to stop the hole with a good-sized stone, I proceeded to my digging
for the last time on the top of the bank. This time I found the
chamber had been moved, and I had some difficulty in locating it
about a foot higher up and about the same distance to one side.
The old birds had evidently discovered my imperfectly closed back
door, and either mistrusted its security, or else a heavy rain
had soaked down into the loosened earth and caused them to make
alterations. They had completely closed up the old chamber and
packed it tightly with earth and disgorged fish bones.”
Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928) makes the following apt quotation
from the writings of Professor Herrick:
From the time of birth the young lie huddled in a cluster
in their dark underground chamber.... As they grow in size
and strength the monotony of sitting still, often with
legs and wings interlocked, must become very great, and
... they soon begin to bite and tease one another like
young puppies. Should one be hard pressed, the only way of
escape lies along the narrow passage, which they naturally
traverse head first; but the instinct to return to the warm
family cluster is strong, and to do this they are obliged
to walk backwards. Again when the rattle of the _alma
mater_ announcing the capture of another fish is heard,
each struggles to get down the narrow passage-way first,
but when the parent enters the hole she hustles them all
back.
The young are fed by their two parents while they remain in the
nest, and for some time afterward while they are learning to fish
for themselves. Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1905) made the following
observations:
By care in concealment we were able to discover that the
adult came to the nest on the first day with no visible
supply of food in the bill but with a gullet conspicuously
swollen. We had previously excavated the nest from the rear
making a false back to it so that it would be protected
from the weather and at the same time open easily. As soon
as feeding was completed and the adult out of sight, we
opened the nest at the false back, took out the young, then
one day old, and examined the crops. They contained a dark
gray, oily mass, nearly fluid and very ill smelling, but
with no bones or scales in it. If fish they were very small
and digested. Returning the young fishers to the tunnel, we
closed it. Two days later the experiment was repeated with
the same results. Four days later, or the seventh day after
hatching, we examined again. This time one of the nestlings
had swallowed several small fish about one and one half
inches long and the others were still hungry. As yet we
had not seen either of the adults bring visible food and
the most frequent feedings had been forty minutes apart, I
believe all by regurgitation. No record was kept from the
seventh to the fourteenth day when an examination was made
for the third time. We now found the young showing well
developed pin feathers, and there were traces of disgorged
fish bones and scales in the nest which had not been there
before. The crops examined showed fish only slightly
digested and regurgitative feeding had evidently given
place wholly or in part to fresh food. On this day one of
the adults brought several fish, possibly four inches long
to the nest in different journeys. Examinations made on the
twenty-first day revealed the same food conditions as the
fourteenth. The pile of fish bones and scales was a trifle
larger but was partially buried in the earth. There was
surprisingly little of this debris in the nest or tunnel
but the ground seemed to be saturated with fishy oil. On
the twenty-eighth day the young kingfishers resented being
examined or photographed, and made good their escape when
taken from the nest.
Henry R. Carey (1909) writes:
The food brought to the nest-hole consists of various
kinds of small fish. It not infrequently happens that one
of these fish is too large to be carried by the parent
bird into the narrow passage; it is then dropped upon the
sand and is allowed to rot. * * * I once found a common
salt-water flounder, four and one-half inches long and
proportionately wide, which, being rather unwieldy for the
parent bird to handle, had been left in this way. Another
time I found a young Sculpin (_Callionymus aeneus_) in the
same condition, and, yet again, a live minnow, which, in
spite of a great patch on its side devoid of scales, was
finally freed in perfect health. * * *
The young birds leave the earth about July 25 [in New
Hampshire]. They are a sombre-looking lot, as for several
days they sit tamely about the wharfs or venture on short,
erratic flights, which makes one feel that they have not
yet got used to the light after their long imprisonment
underground. It is at this time that both parents and
young, somewhat crowded in the vicinity of the home nest
by their sudden increase in population, begin to seek out
new fishing-stubs, or to use old ones for the first time in
the year. When the young are able to care for themselves,
the old birds leave them and lead once more the single life
which they seem to enjoy most.
At this time of year, frequent quarrels occur among them,
mostly about the best fishing spots, and now that strange,
whining note, which Herrick describes as resembling the
grating of two tree boughs in the wind, is often heard. It
appears to be a note of anger; I have heard it when one
bird, wanting the perch of another, hovered menacingly over
him. Once I saw two birds dive simultaneously for the same
spot in the water, the same note escaping them as each
reluctantly swerved aside.
Floyd Bralliar (1922) writes interestingly of how the young learn
to catch their own fish:
The young birds did not remain in the neighborhood of the
nest more than a few days, but those few days were busy
ones, for in that brief time the mother was teaching her
children how to earn a living. She would perch by their
side on an overhanging limb and patiently wait for the
glimmer of a fish below. The first day or two she usually
caught the fish, beat it into partial insensibility and
then dropped it again into the water. The young were
persistent in their plea for food, but the mother was as
insistent that they catch their living if they got any.
There was very little current where they hunted, and a
fish did not float out of sight quickly. The young birds
would crane their necks and look hungrily at the fish below
until finally one more hungry or more bold than the rest
would make a dive for it. At first the aim was not good,
and the bird would miss even a dead fish more often than he
succeeded in catching it. Usually, however, he fluttered
about the surface of the water until he got his fish, even
tho he had missed it when he made his plunge. * * * During
the first few days when the young birds became too hungry,
the mother would occasionally relent and feed them, but
before the week was over, no matter how hungry they became,
no food was coming until they caught it. Within ten days
the young birds were catching live fish instead of half
dead ones.
Then a young bird would catch his fish, carry it to his
perch, whack it over the limb a few times, toss it in the
air, catch it by the head as it came down and swallow
it with as much skill as his mother. As soon as she was
convinced of the skill of each of her brood, she forsook
them entirely. I do not know whether she ultimately
drove them from the neighborhood or whether they left
voluntarily, but when July was past only the old birds were
to be seen in the neighborhood.
Henry Mousley (1938), who made a prolonged study of a family of
belted kingfishers, estimated the period of incubation to be about
24 days. His report says, in conclusion:
On summing up I find forty-two hours were spent with the
birds (May 11-July 24), during which time the young were
fed one hundred times, or at an average rate of once in
every 25.2 minutes. Of course there were periods when the
feeding was much faster, as for instance, once in every
8, 9, 13, 20, and 21 minutes respectively. Sometimes the
parents were absent from the nest for long periods of time,
such as, 150, 120, 105, 97, 93, 90, 85, 75, 70, and 60
minutes at a time, when of course the young were without
food. It was after these long spells that the more rapid
feedings generally took place. As already remarked, the
male seemed to pay the most attention to this part of the
business, for I find of those times when I was perfectly
sure of the sex of the parent, the male fed twenty-eight
times to his partner’s fourteen, or just double. It was the
male parent which was the last seen at the nest previous
to the departure of the one surviving young--a male. The
food for the most part consisted of small fish, crawfish,
minnows, tadpoles, and probably beetles.
_Plumages._--The young kingfisher is hatched naked, blind, and
helpless, a shapeless mass of reddish flesh, looking much like a
very young puppy with a huge conical bill. Its eyes do not open for
about two weeks. Within a week, or less, the pinfeathers or feather
sheaths appear, and soon the young bird bristles in all the feather
tracts with quills like a young porcupine, which grow to varying
lengths and show, before they burst, the pectoral band and the
general color pattern of the adult. When the young bird is 17 or 18
days old, a remarkable change takes places within the short space
of 24 hours, for the sheaths rapidly burst and the juvenal plumage
blossoms out all over the body.
In this plumage the young bird looks strikingly like the adult
with only minor differences, and the sexes are alike. Young birds
of both sexes, when fully fledged, have the pectoral band more or
less heavily tipped or mixed with cinnamon, rufous or dull brown;
this usually consists of narrow edgings in young males, but in
young females many feathers are half or more brown; the rufous band
of the female adult is only partially shown in the young female,
mainly on the flanks, and it shows to some extent in nearly all
young males, some having nearly as much as young females; the
crest is darker than in adults, there is more white in the wing
coverts, the white tips of the secondaries are more extensive, and
the central tail feathers are spotted, as in the adult female.
This juvenal plumage is also a first winter plumage, for it is
worn without much change until spring. Young birds have a first,
prenuptial molt early in spring, which involves most of the body
plumage, perhaps all of it, the tail, and apparently the wings
also; this takes place between February and April. Adults have a
complete postnuptial molt in August, September, and October.
Mr. Brewster (1937a) made some observations on the roosting habits
of kingfishers at Umbagog Lake, Maine, of which he says: “Every
evening, a little after sunset, two or three Kingfishers resort to
Pine Point to spend the night. They fly directly into the forest
and go to roost among the densest foliage, often that of spruces
and arbor vitaes, growing anywhere from four to ten rods back from
the nearest shore.” One that he watched “flew up into a tall,
slender Paper Birch, and alighted near the end of a long branch,
about thirty feet above the ground. * * * As darkness gathered,
the bird settled lower and lower on the branch, and drew in its
neck without, however, burying its head in its plumage, for I could
still see its bill pointing outward over the breast. At 9 P. M. I
went under the tree, and by the light of a lantern dimly made out
the Kingfisher, crouching in the same attitude, in exactly the same
place.”
_Food._--The kingfisher is a fish eater and an expert fisherman,
well deserving its name. It evidently prefers fish to any other
food and would probably live on fish exclusively, if it were
always able to secure all it needed. It catches mainly small fish,
preferably not over 6 inches long, and mostly those species that
are of little use, or even harmful, economically as far as human
interests are concerned. The kingfisher has been condemned by trout
fisherman as a great destroyer of trout, but in a large measure
unjustly. Kingfishers undoubtedly visit trout hatcheries frequently
and can easily catch plenty of trout in the open pools, where the
trout have no place to hide and where they are congregated in large
numbers; they can do considerable damage in such places, but the
trout can be easily protected by placing wire screens over the
pools. In the trout streams wild trout are not so easily caught,
for, as every trout fisherman knows, the trout are seldom seen
in the open places except when darting swiftly across them, but
spend their time hiding under overhanging banks, or under logs or
stones, and only dashing out occasionally to capture their prey.
On the other hand, chubs, dace, suckers, and sometimes sculpins
are very common in most trout streams, generally in larger numbers
than the trout; they frequent the open spaces, are much slower in
their movements than the swiftly moving trout, and consequently are
more easily caught. The records show that these neutral or harmful
fishes make up the greater part, or nearly all, of the kingfisher’s
catch in trout streams. Chub and sculpins are very destructive
to small trout fry; and suckers eat quantities of trout spawn;
consequently the kingfishers are really doing the trout fisherman
a favor by reducing the numbers of these fishes in the streams and
should be protected rather than persecuted.
The kingfisher must of necessity do its fishing in clear water,
so is seldom seen on muddy streams or ponds, or on those that
are choked or overgrown with thick vegetation, such as is often
found along trout streams. It usually perches on some stake,
snag, or pier standing in the water, or on some bare overhanging
branch, where it can watch patiently for some passing fish.
Favorite perches of this sort in good fishing spots are resorted
to regularly and rival kingfishers are driven away, for the
kingfisher is a solitary bird except during the nesting season
or while training its young. From such a perch the bird may dive
obliquely into the water to seize the fish in its powerful bill;
or, rising 30 or 40 feet into the air and scanning the water below
it in more active pursuit of its prey, it may stop and hover for
a few seconds, with rapidly vibrating wings, and then make a
straight or spiral dive directly downward, disappearing beneath the
water sometimes for several seconds. It is not always successful
in its plunges, as the fish may move and cause a sudden change
of direction in the bird’s rapid dive either above or below the
surface; but it is not easily discouraged and is always ready
to try again. Having secured the fish, it flies with it to some
favorite perch, where it beats the fish into insensibility, tosses
it into the air, or otherwise adjusts it, so that it can swallow
it head first and thus avoid any injury to its throat from the
sharp spiny fins. Sometimes the fish is too large to be swallowed
completely, in which case the tail must be left protruding from
the mouth until the rapid process of digestion enables the bird to
gradually work it down. Manly Hardy wrote to Major Bendire (1895)
of such a case, and says: “I shot a Kingfisher last spring that had
swallowed a pickerel considerably longer than the bird from the
end of the bill to the tip of the tail, and the tail of the fish
protruding from the throat, while the head was partly doubled back,
causing a large protuberance near the vent.”
Where fish are not readily obtainable, especially in the arid
regions of the Southwest where the streams largely disappear
during the dry season, the kingfisher seems able to make a good
living on various other kinds of food. The list includes crabs,
crayfishes, mussels, lizards, frogs, toads, small snakes, turtles,
grasshoppers, locusts, rickets, salamanders, newts, butterflies,
moths, beetles and other insects, young birds, mice, and even
berries. On the seacoast, it has been known to feed on clams and
oysters, which sometimes results disastrously for the bird. H. C.
Hopkins (1892) reports finding a kingfisher with “its bill held
fast between the shells of an oyster.” The bird had evidently
inserted its bill into the open shell of the oyster, which had
closed upon it; “the tongue [was] quite black from non-circulation
of the blood, which showed that it must have been held prisoner
for some time.” The bird would probably have drowned at the next
high tide. Dr. B. H. Warren (1890) reports that a friend of his
once caught one of these birds on a hook and line while fishing
with a live minnow for bait. He also says: “One day B. M. Everhart
found a kingfisher lying on the bank of a small stream. On making
an investigation, Mr. Everhart ascertained that the bird was
unable to fly, as its bill was tightly clasped in the grasp of a
large fresh-water mussel. I have heard of several instances where
kingfishers have been captured under similar circumstances, which
could naturally lead one to suppose that they feed to a limited
degree on the flesh of these bivalves.”
In the Bermudas, kingfishers are said to feed on squids. Walter B.
Barrows (1912) quotes Professor Aughey, of Nebraska, as follows:
“One that was sent to me to identify in September, 1874, had 18
locusts, in addition to portions of some fish, in its stomach.
One that I opened in September, 1876, had mingled at least 14
locusts with its fish diet.” Bendire (1895) caught a kingfisher
in a trap baited with a mouse, and believed “that not a few
mice, and possibly small birds also, are caught by them during
their nocturnal rambles, and they are certainly fully as active
throughout the night as in the daytime.”
Kingfishers disgorge as pellets the indigestible portions of their
food, such as fish bones and scales, the shells of crustaceans and
the seeds of berries; the bones and scales found in the nests are
the remains of such pellets. Henry K. Carey (1909) writes:
Only once have I seen a pellet of fishbones and scales
being disgorged from the bird’s beak, as he sat on his
hunting perch. These pellets are found wherever the birds
are accustomed to sit for any length of time. I once found
one completely composed of various parts of the shell of
a small crab. Only a few days later I had the pleasure of
seeing a crab actually caught. The bird captured him by
diving in the usual way and took him to a low rock where
he proceeded to bang him just as he would have done to a
minnow. During this process the crab, which measured an
inch and a half sideways across the shell, lost several
legs and was dropped upon the rock, from which by a
considerable effort he managed to fall by scrambling to the
edge with his remaining legs. The bird, perhaps seeing that
he was rather a large morsel to swallow whole, then forgot
him completely and went on with his fishing.
Ora W. Knight (1908) has seen kingfishers chase and capture moths
and butterflies, taking them on the wing. Dr. Thomas S. Roberts
(1932) says that they have been known to eat young sparrows; also
that “crawfish are pounded and crushed before swallowing, and fish
that are too large may be divided into pieces by the powerful bill.
Miss Densmore, of Red Wing, once saw a Kingfisher that was making
unsuccessful attempts to handle a small turtle. This was thoroughly
pounded and variously manipulated but had to be discarded in the
end.”
Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1918) writes: “Early in August, 1917, Mr.
John Hair, gamekeeper of Mr. R. T. Crane at Ipswich, missed six
of a four days old brood of Bob-whites. He had seen a Kingfisher
nearby and later the same day saw it perched on the gable end of
the little house where the Bob-whites had been hatched, and from
there pounce on the young birds as they ran in and out. He shot the
Kingfisher, and, on opening the bird, a female, found the legs and
feathers of the young Bob-whites in its crop.”
When hard pressed for animal food the kingfisher has been known
to eat wild cherries and probably other wild fruits. Dr. Elliott
Coues (1878) published the following note from Mrs. Mary Treat
about a kingfisher that fished regularly from a private wharf in
front of her house in Florida: “When the water is so rough that
it is difficult for him to procure fish, instead of seeking some
sequestered pool he remains at his usual post, occasionally making
an ineffectual effort to secure his customary prey, until, nearly
starved, he resorts to a sour-gum tree (_Nyssa aquatica_, L.) in
the vicinity, and greedily devours the berries. Returning to his
post, he soon ejects a pellet of the large seeds and skins of the
fruit.”