Kingfishers, Alcedo atthis, Nesting pair on the River Calder, West Yorkshire.

            And the caption is…
‘Don't turn your back on me when I'm talking to you’.
A beautiful breeding pair of Kingfishers, Alcedo atthis (Male left, Female right) nest excavating on the River Calder, West Yorkshire. In this image the female, with mud on her bill, is complaining to the male that she is doing most of the work! 😀

Nest Building:
Kingfishers typically have 2 or 3 broods of chicks per season, so they have to start preparations promptly. By this point, the female Kingfisher will have ideally found a mate, which means that the nest-building process can begin! Occasionally, previously used nesting tunnels will be re-excavated, but males will usually create a few different tunnels to impress the female. The whole process can take over a fortnight – a herculean task for a little kingfisher. The male will bravely fly headfirst at the riverbank with his pointed bill a few times to loosen the soil, then once a proper impression has been made, he can perch on the resulting ledge and start gradually digging away. Tunnels can be over a metre long, so it’s not surprising that pairs often ‘take shifts’ and divide up the work between each other. Because the nest tunnel is also quite narrow, the kingfisher has to shuffle backwards out of the hole between shifts, kicking out any loose soil with their tiny feet.

At the end of their tunnel, they dig out a slightly wider, oval shaped egg chamber, which is angled downwards slightly so no eggs can roll out. Kingfishers, like owls, cough up pellets of indigestible material. If a kingfisher brings up a pellet of fish bones and scales while brooding, it may break it apart with its beak and add the material to the nest. Over the next few weeks, this chamber will be filled with up to 7 eggs, and then – once the chicks hatch (incubation is around 19-21 days) – even more fish bones gradually pile up from the many feedings that are required. A dark chamber which is slowly filling with rotting fish doesn’t exactly sound like a ‘home’ to us, but at least it’s safe from predators! When the breeding pair are ready for their next brood, they’ll typically switch to a new tunnel (one that isn’t so fishy).

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Kingfisher Notes and Information:

Eight Kingfisher Notes... 
Kingfishers eat mainly fish, chiefly minnows and sticklebacks, but they also take aquatic insects, freshwater shrimps and tadpoles.

They close their eyes as they dive into the water, so they are fishing blind! They bob their heads before diving to accurately judge the depth of the fish.

Kingfisher courtship occurs in spring. The male will approach the female with a fish in his beak. He will hold it so that the head of the fish is facing outwards and attempt to feed it to the female. If he is unsuccessful he will simply eat the fish himself. He may have to repeat this feeding behaviour for some time before mating occurs.

A kingfisher pair dig a nest tunnel in vertical, sandy river banks. The nest chamber at the end has a slight depression to prevent eggs rolling out, but no material is brought into the nest.

The first clutch of 6-7 eggs is laid in late March or in early April. Each chick can eat 12-18 fish a day meaning the adults may catch over 120 fish each day for their brood.

Chicks are fed in rotation. Once a chick is fed, it moves to the back of the nest to digest its meal, causing the others to move forward.

Once out of the nest, the young are fed for only four days before the adults drive them out of the territory and start the next brood. 2-3 broods are often raised in a breeding season.

The design of a kingfisher’s beak is aerodynamically efficient, allowing it to dive from its perch, towards its prey, with maximum speed and minimum splash. In fact, the beak design is so clever that the front of many Japanese bullet trains are modelled to mimic it. Scottish Wildlife Trust Notes.

Taken on: April 14, 2023

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