By LESLIE BISHOP, guest columnist
During our annual winter week in Florida, my husband and I always return to our favorite nature preserves to watch birds. The birds that capture my attention are those that can cross the interface of air and water.
At the beach, we watched sanderlings dart along the tide line before the crash of waves to probe the sand for burrowing bivalves and crustaceans.
We watched pelicans diving for fish and gulls trying to steal their catch.
While visiting marshes and mangroves, we were entertained for hours by wading birds such as egrets and herons stalk small fish in shallow water. A highlight was the Snowy Egret who caught a young snake along a bank. The snake writhed and thrashed as the egret tried to swallow the long body, and at one point wrapped its tail end tightly around the bird’s skinny neck. After a long struggle, the snake’s body went limp, and the egret swallowed it, inch by inch.
These serendipitous moments are what we remember and why we return year after year.
Since we just returned, it is no wonder that today the bird that captured my attention was the Belted Kingfisher on the waterway along Trevlac.
Kingfishers are easy to identify even from a distance by their odd shape; the head and bill are disproportionately large compared to their bodies, and their head feathers form a comical, ragged crest.
Both the females and the males are blue-gray above with a blue-gray breast-band on their contrasting white breast. The females have an additional rusty breast-band and flanks.
On the lake trail at Yellowwood, you are apt to hear their distinctive, raucous rattle before you see them. Belted Kingfishers can be seen in Indiana all year-round along lakes, rivers and streams.
Kingfishers hang out on a perch above open water. When they spot a fish at the water surface, they dive bomb into the water and grab the fish with their big beaks.
Unlike our Snowy Egret with the snake, the Belted Kingfisher does not put up with a struggling prey. Instead, after capturing a fish, the kingfisher will return to its perch and whack the hapless prey repeatedly against the branch until it is lifeless.
Besides fish, kingfishers will also capture crayfish, frogs and other small aquatic animals.
Belted kingfishers spend most of the year alone along the shores of a waterway where they will noisily defend their feeding territory from other kingfishers.
In the early spring, they will pair up with a mate to build a nest and care for the offspring. After a courtship that involves gifts of fish, the pair excavates a burrow into a bank. The excavation includes a tunnel extending 3 to 6 feet into the bank that terminates in a nesting chamber.
The female will lay six to eight eggs which will hatch in about three weeks. Both parents will feed the young and defend the nest from intruders until the young fledge. The pair will stay together throughout the breeding season, then return to their loner status for the rest of the year.
The prey-capture strategies of birds in aquatic environments are varied and fascinating to watch. Whether you are at the beach, in a marsh or hiking along a creek, there is bound to be a bird to observe.
For me, it’s a great excuse to sit in a quiet place on the beach or at home by the lake, to be still, and to wait for something to happen. If a kingfisher is close by, his loud rattle will alert you!
Leslie Bishop is a Brown County resident and retired biology professor from Earlham College. She is a volunteer interpretive naturalist at Brown County State Park. She can be reached through the newspaper at [email protected].
