Many of you have had this experience: canoeing or walking the bank of a river or creek, we see a flash of blue and white and hear the dry rattle of a kingfisher. More often than not, you’ll see or hear this kingfisher several times as you ‘chase’ it along the creek, the rattle becoming longer and more irritated. Why doesn’t the darn bird fly back around you? Kingfishers and watercourses are such a perfect match that the birds don’t like to stray too far from one, especially if they’re hunting for a meal. Occasionally, though, you’ll see a Kingfisher flying quickly over some non-water habitat, likely making tracks for the nearest fishing ground.
We have only 1 Kingfisher species here in central Ohio, the Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcion), but it shares some of the unique features of the family. You know they love shallow water, preferring to dive on minnows swimming near the surface, but occasionally snagging crayfish and large bugs. Most have an oversized head and a large beak with finely serrated edges for seizing and gripping such slippery prey. As adults they often regurgitate the bones and exoskeletons of digested prey in pellets, much like a raptor, and these pellets can be thick underneath favored perches. They even use them to line their nests, creating a soft, waterproof, but smelly, nest chamber. Here’s a nice re-cap of Kingfishers by Animalogic, a Canadian video outfit:
It’s in reproduction that the family starts to stray from the expected avian patterns. Belted Kingfishers are one of the few birds where the female is larger and more colorful than the male, possessing an extra rusty-red belly band. Females are more territorial during the breeding season, but the pair shares digging and brood-rearing, so it’s unclear why the females are more colorful (see the discussion at the All About Birds website). There’s a sex-dimorphism in migration: most males stay on their territories for much of the year (unless the creeks totally freeze), while almost all females migrate further south. Most individuals or pairs need around a half mile of natural stream for a territory, and the males may be loathe to give up hard-won territories, whereas the females need more food during the off season to bulk up for egg-laying. Most kingfishers don’t build nests, instead opting to dig a burrow into steep sand or gravel banks. These are usually along stream or river banks, but not always, and they have the anti-flooding feature of an upward-slanting neck. This way the nests can survive brief floods by trapping a big air pocket around the nest chamber.
Belted Kingfishers appear to be the only kingfisher that has adapted to cold temperate North America, and many of them need to migrate south to persist here. There are other Kingfisher species, the Ringed and the Green, in Texas, and still more in Central and South America, so year-round open shallow water seems necessary for lots of members of this family. A similar pattern holds in the Old World, where the Eurasian Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) has expanded into northern Europe and Russia, migrating in winter down to the Mediterranean and Middle East. Africa and the Mediterranean have several more species.
Where and when should you be alert for Kingfishers here in central Ohio? Pretty much any wooded creek or river at any time of year, provided it is not frozen or too turbid with mud, could host kingfishers. Clear streams with wooded banks are the best habitat, which fortunately describes many of the creeks around Columbus. In winter, the ice-free stretches below dams (like Hoover, Griggs, and O’Shaughnessy) are ideal for overwintering males. In Spring, look for territorial birds along stretches of Big Darby Creek, the Olentangy River, or Big Walnut Creek where there are creekside bluffs into which they can burrow their nests. Just try not to chase them around their riverfront domain too much.