The eggs are two or three in number, most often three, and are laid from the second week in June to the first of July. They are a pale bluish green in color, overlaid with a light chalky deposit, somewhat like that found on Cormorant eggs. In shape they vary from long to rounded oval, and average in measurement 1.60 × .99 inches. A week often elapses between the laying of the first and the last egg.
Upon one occasion I noticed a most interesting trait in these birds, which I never observed in any other species. While standing in an open woodland listening to a pair of Cuckoos calling to each other, I saw the male suddenly fly past with a large green worm in his bill. He flew directly to the female, who was perched in a tree a few yards distant, and for a moment or two they sat motionless a few inches apart looking at each other. The male then hovered lightly over his mate and, settling gently upon her shoulders, gracefully bent over and placed the worm in her bill. It was a pretty and daintily performed piece of love-making.
J. H. Bowles.
Alcedinidæ—The Kingfishers
No. 181.
BELTED KINGFISHER.
A. O. U. No. 390. Ceryle alcyon (Linn.).
Synonym.—Commonly called plain Kingfisher.
Description.—Adult male: Above, bright bluish gray, feathers with blackish shafts or shaft-lines; loosely crested; edge of wing white; primaries dusky, white-spotted on outer web, narrowly white-tipped, broadly white on inner web; coverts often delicately tipped or touched with white; tail bluish gray above, the central feathers with herring-bone pattern of dusky; remaining feathers only blue-edged, dusky, finely and incompletely barred with white; lower eyelid white, and a white spot in front of eye; throat and sides of neck, nearly meeting behind, pure white; a broad band of bluish gray across the breast; remaining underparts white, sides under wing, and flanks, heavily shaded with blue-gray; bill black, pale at base below; feet dark. Adult female: Similar, but with a chestnut band across lower breast, and with heavy shading of the same color on sides. Immature: Like adults, except that the plumbeous band of breast is heavily mixed with rusty (suggesting chestnut of female). Length 12.00-14.00 (304.8-355.6); wing 6.21 (157.7); tail 3.84 (97.5); bill from nostril 1.69 (42.9).
Recognition Marks.—“Kingfisher” size; blue-gray and white coloration; piscatorial habits; rattling cry.
Nesting.—Nest: at end of tunnel in bank, four to six feet in, unlined. Eggs, 6-8, pure white. Av. size, 1.31 × 1.04 (33.3 × 26.4). Season: May; one brood.
General Range.—North America from the Arctic Ocean south to Panama and the West Indies. Breeds from the southern border of the United States northward.
Range in Washington.—Summer resident, chiefly at lower levels; partially resident west of the Cascades, and casually resident on the East-side.
Authorities.—[Lewis and Clark. Hist. Ex. (1814) Ed. Biddle: Coues. Vol. II., p. 189.] Ceryle alcyon, Boie, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX., 1858, p. 158. T. C&S. L¹. D¹. Sr. Kb. Ra. D². Ss¹. Ss². Kk. J. B. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. P. Prov. B. BN. E.
When we were small boys and had successfully teased our fathers or big brothers to let us go fishing with them, we were repeatedly admonished not to “holler” for fear of scaring the fish. This gratuitous and frequently emphatic advice would have been discredited if the example of the Kingfisher had been followed. Either because noise doesn’t matter to fish, or because he is moved by the same generous impulse which prompts the cougar to give fair and frightful warning of his presence at the beginning of an intended foray, the bird makes a dreadful racket as he moves up stream and settles upon his favorite perch, a bare branch overlooking a quiet pool. Here, altho he waits long and patiently, he not infrequently varies the monotony of incessant scrutiny by breaking out with his weird rattle—like a watchman’s call, some have said; but there is nothing metallic about it, only wooden. Again, when game is sighted, he rattles with excitement before he makes a plunge; and when he bursts out of the water with a wriggling minnow in his beak, he clatters in high glee. If, as rarely happens, the bird misses the stroke, the sputtering notes which follow speak plainly of disgust, and we are glad for the moment that Kingfisher talk is not exactly translatable.
Taken near Portland. Photo by A. W. Anthony.
THE KING ROW.
It is not quite clear whether the bird usually seizes or spears its prey, altho it is certain that it sometimes does the latter. The story is told of a Kingfisher which, spying some minnows in a wooden tub nearly filled with water, struck so eagerly that its bill penetrated the bottom of the tub, and so thoroly that the bird was unable to extricate itself; and so died—a death almost as ignominious as that of the king who was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.