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.Taken near Portland.Photo by A. W. Anthony.THE KING ROW.
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 ofa 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.
Taken near Portland. Photo by A. W. Anthony. A FISHER PRINCE AT HOME.Taken near Portland.Photo by A. W. Anthony.A FISHER PRINCE AT HOME.
Taken near Portland.Photo by A. W. Anthony.A FISHER PRINCE AT HOME.
When a fish is taken the bird first thrashes it against its perch to make sure it is dead, and then swallows it head foremost. If the fish is a large one its captor often finds it necessary to go thru the most ridiculous contortions, gaspings, writhings, chokings, regurgitations, and renewed attempts, in order to encompass its safe delivery within.
Kingfishers have the reputation of being very unsocial birds. Apart from their family life, which is idyllic, this reputation is well sustained. Good fishing is so scarce that the birds deem it best to portion off the territory with others of their own kind, and they are very punctilious about the observance of boundaries and allotments. For the rest, why should they hunt up avian companions, whose tastes are not educated to an appreciation of exposed, water-soaked stubs, and a commanding view of river scenery? However, I did once see a Kingfisher affably hobnobbing with a Kingbird, on a barren branch which overlooked a crystal stream in Idaho. I wonder if they recognized a mutual kingliness, this humble fisherman and this petulant hawk-driver?
Kingfisher courtship is a very noisy and spirited affair. One does not know just how many miles up and down stream it is considered proper for the gallant to pursue his enamorata before she yields a coy acceptance; and it is difficult to perceive how the tender passion can survive the din of theactual proposal, where both vociferate in wooden concert to a distracted world. But la! love is mighty and doth mightily prevail.
The nesting tunnel is driven laterally into the face of a steep bank, preferably of sand or loam, usually directly over the water, but occasionally at a considerable distance from it. Dr. Brewer reports one in a gravel pit at least a mile from water. The birds are not so particular as are the Bank Swallows about digging near the top of the bank, but, especially if the bank is small, usually select a point about midway. The tunnel goes straight in or turns sharply to suit an occasional whim, until a convenient depth, say five or six feet, is reached, when a considerable enlargement is made for the nest chamber. Here, early in May, six or seven white eggs are laid, usually upon the bare earth, but sometimes upon a lining of grass, straw and trash. From time to time the birds eject pellets containing fish scales, the broken testæ of crawfish and other indigestible substances and these are added to the accumulating nest material. Sanitary regulations are not very strict in Kingfisher’s home, and by the time the young are ready to fly we could not blame them for being glad to get away. The female is a proverbially close sitter, often permitting herself to be taken with the hand, but not until after she has made a vigorous defense with her sharp beak. If a stick be introduced into the nest she will sometimes seize it so tightly that she can be lifted from the eggs, turtle fashion.
EVENING ON THE PEND D’OREILLE.EVENING ON THE PEND D’OREILLE.
EVENING ON THE PEND D’OREILLE.
The parents are very busy birds after the young have broken shell, and it takes many a quintal of fish to prepare six, or maybe seven, lusty fisher princes for the battle of life. At this season the birds hunt and wait upon their young principally at night, in order not to attract hostile attention to them by daylight visits. Only one brood is raised in a season, and since fishing is unquestionably a fine art, the youngsters require constant supervision and instruction for several months. A troopof six or eight birds seen in August or early in September does not mean that Kingfisher is indulging in mid-summer gaities with his fellows, but only that the family group of that season has not yet been broken up.
The Kingfisher is not only a fresh water bird of wide distribution, but a lover of the sea. It is found thruout the length of our ample shores on both sound and ocean; but is, of course, most common where suitable nesting bluffs of clay or sand are afforded. Thruout western Washington the bird is largely resident, and if this very stable species ever does begin to show variation, it will be in the Pacific Northwest.
[1]The Birds of Ohio, by William Leon Dawson, A. M., B. D., with Introduction and Analytical Keys by Lynds Jones, M. Sc. One and Two Volumes, pp. xlviii. + 671. Columbus, The Wheaton Publishing Company, 1903.[2]Key to North American Birds, by Elliott Coues, A. M., M. D., Ph. D., Fifth Edition (entirely revised), in Two Volumes; pp. xli. + 1152. Boston, Dana Estes and Company, 1903.[3]The Birds of North and Middle America, by Robert Ridgway, Curator, Division of Birds, U. S. National Museum, Bulletin of the U. S. N. M., No. 50; Pt. I.,Fringillidae, pp. xxxi. + 715 and Pl. XX. (1901); Pt. II.,Tanagridae, etc., pp. xx. + 834 and Pl. XXII. (1902); Pt. III.,Motacillidae, etc., pp. xx. + 801 and Pl. XIX. (1904); Pt. IV.,Turdidae, etc., pp. xxll. + 973 and Pl. XXXIV. (1907).[4]“The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia,” by John Keast Lord. Two Vols. London. Published by Richard Bentley, 1866. Vol. II., p. 70.[5]Rep. Pac. R. R. Survey, Vol. XII., Bk. II. [Senate, 1860].[6]Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Vol. VI., p. 140.[7]The Auk, Vol. III., 1886, p. 167.[8]Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 394.[9]Handbook Birds of the Western U. S., pp. 278-9.[10]The Auk, Vol. XVII., Oct. 1900, p. 354.[11]The Auk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 45.[12]Since writing the above specimens have been taken at Kirkland by Miss Jennie V. Getty (Dec. 1908).[13]Rep. Nat’l Hist. Coll. in Alaska, pp. 174, 175.[14]By “shading” here is not meant subspecific relationship, altho this does obtain as regarding bothgriseonuchaandlittoralis, but rather suggestive relationship, assumed divergence from a common stock.[15]“Birds of Illinois,” Vol. I., p. 263.[16]So called for decades, but now lost to us thru the latest caprice of nomenclature.Varium et mutabile semper A. O. U. Check-List.[17]Until the season of 1908. Seeanteunder “Migrations.”[18]“(?) Bendire, Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. XIX., 1877, 118 (Camp Harney, e. Oregon, breeding)” (Ridgway).[19]Based upon that ofMelospiza melodiafrom which it differs slightly in proportions but chiefly in grayer coloration. The measurements are those of Ridgway, Birds of N. & M. A., Vol. I., p. 358.[20]Birds of North and Mid. Am., Vol. I., p. 391.[21]Birds of North and Middle America, Vol. I., p. 401.[22]Coues, “Birds of the Northwest” (Ed. 1874), p. 177.[23]Lynds Jones in Dawson’s “The Birds of Ohio,” p. 94.[24]Applied toP. erythromelasin “The Birds of Ohio,” p. 109, and exactly applicable here.[25]Handbook of Birds of W. U. S., p. 419.[26]Coues’ Key to N. A. Birds, Fourth Edition, is especially referred to. The matter has been corrected in the Fifth Edition.[27]The Condor, Vol. VIII., March 1906, p. 41.[28]“Narrative,” April 1839, p. 343.[29]A Review of the Larks of the Genus Otocoris, Proc. U. S. Nat’l Mus., Vol. XXIV., pp. 801-884, 1902.[30]Much clearer testimony is required on this point. Oberholser,op. cit., p. 839, cites a record for Colton in Whitman County, but I have never seen this form in Yakima County; and it would seem remarkable that a bird should forsake the mild climate of Tacoma to endure the more severe winters and less certain food supply of the East-side.[31]A near view of this remarkable nest was forbidden by the breaking of a negative.[32]Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River [etc.], by John K. Townsend (1839), p. 339. Townsend’s “Catalog of birds found in the territory of the Oregon,” which appeared in this work, pp. 331-336, enjoys the distinction of being the first faunal list of this northwestern region. It contains 208 titles but the naturalist included in it mention of many species encountered by him in his passage of the Rocky Mountains, and he does not, of course, distinguish between the regions lying north and south of the Columbia River. Of the total number recorded, therefore, Washington cannot possibly be entitled to above 168 species, and the list has little value in establishing the status of a bird as a resident of Washington.[33]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. VI., 1857, p. 82.[34]Coues, Birds of the Northwest (1874), pp. 95, 96.[35]Prof. O. B. Johnson in his “List of the Birds of the Willamette Valley, Oregon” [Am. Naturalist, July, 1880, p. 487] has made an excellent characterization of this song in “Holsey, govendy, govindy, goveendy.”[36]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. XII., Book II., 1860, p. 171.[37]Auk, vol. XV., April, 1898, p. 130.[38]Narrative (1839), p. 344.[39]Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, Vol. I., p. 65 [Reprint].[40]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol XII., 1859, p. 173.[41]Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, Land Birds, Vol. I., p. 66 [Reprint].[42]“American Birds,” by William Lovell Finley (1907), p. 170.[43]First record by R. H. Lawrence: Two seen on Stevens Prairie [Gray’s Harbor County] April 22 [1891] (VideÀuk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 47). Second record by the author: Male and female with five full-grown young encountered near Sluiskin Falls on Mt. Rainier, July 7, 1908, at an altitude of 6500 feet.[44]Ridgway: Six specimens.[45]“The present example of an isolated colony of a particular form, or what must be regarded as the same form in the absence of obvious distinctive characters, is one of several instances which are very troublesome to both the systematist and the student of geographic distribution. The birds of this species occurring, exclusively, in the area defined above are clearly intermediates betweenP. a. septentrionalis, a form larger and paler thanP. a. atricapillus, which occupies the region immediately eastward, andP. a. occidentalis, a form smaller and darker thanP. a. atricapillus, which inhabits the region immediately westward. It thus happens that, while these puzzling birds are practically, if not absolutely, indistinguishable fromP. a. atricapillusthey can hardly be considered exactly the same, since they are everywhere widely cut off from the latter by the very extensive area occupied byP. a. septentrionalis.”—Ridgway.[46]Shading into the following variety,C. f. occidentalis, upon the lower levels.[47]“The Birds of Cheney, Washington,” The Condor, Vol. VIII., Jan., 1906, p. 25 [No scientific name given].[48]“The Birds of N. and M. America,” Vol. III., p. 659.[49]Cooper and Suckley, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. XII., pt. II., 1860, p. 185.[50]Rev. S. H. Goodwin in “The Condor,” Vol. VII., No. 4, p. 100.[51]The Auk, Vol. XX., July, 1903, p. 283.[52]“Pacific Sportsman,” Vol. 2, June, 1905, p. 270.[53]The Condor, Vol. VII., July, August, 1905, p. 100.[54]Birds of Gray’s Harbor, Wash., Auk, Vol. IX., Jan., 1892, p. 46.[55]Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., N. Y., Vol. III., p. 149.[56]The Auk, Vol. IX., Oct., 1892, p. 396.[57]The Auk, Vol. XV., Jan., 1898, p. 18.[58]Auk, Vol. XIX., Apr., 1902, p. 138.[59]Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1893, p. 54.[60]Cat. B. C. Birds Prov. Mus., Victoria, 1904, p. 52.[61]C. W. and J. H. Bowles in The Auk, Vol. XV., Apr., 1898, p. 139.[62]Ridgway (B. of N. & M. Am.) recognizes two color phases of this bird, a white- and a yellow-bellied. In the latter the plumage of upperparts inclines more strongly to olivaceous.[63]Auk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 44.[64]Bendire, Life Histories N. A. Birds, Vol. II., pp. 217, 218.[65]Bendire, Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 219.[66]The Hummingbirds (Rep. Nat. Mus., 1890, pp. 253-383, plate I).[67]These words are used advisedly. The case reported from the sea-wall of Santa Cruz County, California, claimsnonest and onlyoneegg. If this be not a case of misidentification, then it is an example of freak nesting utterly at variance with all Swift traditions, and with much that is actually known concerning the habits of this species.The classic instance reported from Seattle in the columns of the Auk (Vol. V., ’88, p. 424) of a nest “made of straws, chips, paper, etc.,” proved to concern the handiwork of the Purple Martin (Progne subis), but the mistake was a not unnatural one in view of the then rarity of the Martin.[68]Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., 1895, p. 176.[69]Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 185.[70]Allan Brooks in The Auk, Vol. XXVI., Jan. 1909.[71]The Auk, vol. V., 1888, p. 253.[72]“Birds of Ohio,” p. 350.[73]The Wilson Bulletin, No. 39, June, 1902, p. 63.[74]Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 107.
[1]The Birds of Ohio, by William Leon Dawson, A. M., B. D., with Introduction and Analytical Keys by Lynds Jones, M. Sc. One and Two Volumes, pp. xlviii. + 671. Columbus, The Wheaton Publishing Company, 1903.
[2]Key to North American Birds, by Elliott Coues, A. M., M. D., Ph. D., Fifth Edition (entirely revised), in Two Volumes; pp. xli. + 1152. Boston, Dana Estes and Company, 1903.
[3]The Birds of North and Middle America, by Robert Ridgway, Curator, Division of Birds, U. S. National Museum, Bulletin of the U. S. N. M., No. 50; Pt. I.,Fringillidae, pp. xxxi. + 715 and Pl. XX. (1901); Pt. II.,Tanagridae, etc., pp. xx. + 834 and Pl. XXII. (1902); Pt. III.,Motacillidae, etc., pp. xx. + 801 and Pl. XIX. (1904); Pt. IV.,Turdidae, etc., pp. xxll. + 973 and Pl. XXXIV. (1907).
[4]“The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia,” by John Keast Lord. Two Vols. London. Published by Richard Bentley, 1866. Vol. II., p. 70.
[5]Rep. Pac. R. R. Survey, Vol. XII., Bk. II. [Senate, 1860].
[6]Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Vol. VI., p. 140.
[7]The Auk, Vol. III., 1886, p. 167.
[8]Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 394.
[9]Handbook Birds of the Western U. S., pp. 278-9.
[10]The Auk, Vol. XVII., Oct. 1900, p. 354.
[11]The Auk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 45.
[12]Since writing the above specimens have been taken at Kirkland by Miss Jennie V. Getty (Dec. 1908).
[13]Rep. Nat’l Hist. Coll. in Alaska, pp. 174, 175.
[14]By “shading” here is not meant subspecific relationship, altho this does obtain as regarding bothgriseonuchaandlittoralis, but rather suggestive relationship, assumed divergence from a common stock.
[15]“Birds of Illinois,” Vol. I., p. 263.
[16]So called for decades, but now lost to us thru the latest caprice of nomenclature.Varium et mutabile semper A. O. U. Check-List.
[17]Until the season of 1908. Seeanteunder “Migrations.”
[18]“(?) Bendire, Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. XIX., 1877, 118 (Camp Harney, e. Oregon, breeding)” (Ridgway).
[19]Based upon that ofMelospiza melodiafrom which it differs slightly in proportions but chiefly in grayer coloration. The measurements are those of Ridgway, Birds of N. & M. A., Vol. I., p. 358.
[20]Birds of North and Mid. Am., Vol. I., p. 391.
[21]Birds of North and Middle America, Vol. I., p. 401.
[22]Coues, “Birds of the Northwest” (Ed. 1874), p. 177.
[23]Lynds Jones in Dawson’s “The Birds of Ohio,” p. 94.
[24]Applied toP. erythromelasin “The Birds of Ohio,” p. 109, and exactly applicable here.
[25]Handbook of Birds of W. U. S., p. 419.
[26]Coues’ Key to N. A. Birds, Fourth Edition, is especially referred to. The matter has been corrected in the Fifth Edition.
[27]The Condor, Vol. VIII., March 1906, p. 41.
[28]“Narrative,” April 1839, p. 343.
[29]A Review of the Larks of the Genus Otocoris, Proc. U. S. Nat’l Mus., Vol. XXIV., pp. 801-884, 1902.
[30]Much clearer testimony is required on this point. Oberholser,op. cit., p. 839, cites a record for Colton in Whitman County, but I have never seen this form in Yakima County; and it would seem remarkable that a bird should forsake the mild climate of Tacoma to endure the more severe winters and less certain food supply of the East-side.
[31]A near view of this remarkable nest was forbidden by the breaking of a negative.
[32]Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River [etc.], by John K. Townsend (1839), p. 339. Townsend’s “Catalog of birds found in the territory of the Oregon,” which appeared in this work, pp. 331-336, enjoys the distinction of being the first faunal list of this northwestern region. It contains 208 titles but the naturalist included in it mention of many species encountered by him in his passage of the Rocky Mountains, and he does not, of course, distinguish between the regions lying north and south of the Columbia River. Of the total number recorded, therefore, Washington cannot possibly be entitled to above 168 species, and the list has little value in establishing the status of a bird as a resident of Washington.
[33]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. VI., 1857, p. 82.
[34]Coues, Birds of the Northwest (1874), pp. 95, 96.
[35]Prof. O. B. Johnson in his “List of the Birds of the Willamette Valley, Oregon” [Am. Naturalist, July, 1880, p. 487] has made an excellent characterization of this song in “Holsey, govendy, govindy, goveendy.”
[36]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. XII., Book II., 1860, p. 171.
[37]Auk, vol. XV., April, 1898, p. 130.
[38]Narrative (1839), p. 344.
[39]Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, Vol. I., p. 65 [Reprint].
[40]Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol XII., 1859, p. 173.
[41]Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, Land Birds, Vol. I., p. 66 [Reprint].
[42]“American Birds,” by William Lovell Finley (1907), p. 170.
[43]First record by R. H. Lawrence: Two seen on Stevens Prairie [Gray’s Harbor County] April 22 [1891] (VideÀuk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 47). Second record by the author: Male and female with five full-grown young encountered near Sluiskin Falls on Mt. Rainier, July 7, 1908, at an altitude of 6500 feet.
[44]Ridgway: Six specimens.
[45]“The present example of an isolated colony of a particular form, or what must be regarded as the same form in the absence of obvious distinctive characters, is one of several instances which are very troublesome to both the systematist and the student of geographic distribution. The birds of this species occurring, exclusively, in the area defined above are clearly intermediates betweenP. a. septentrionalis, a form larger and paler thanP. a. atricapillus, which occupies the region immediately eastward, andP. a. occidentalis, a form smaller and darker thanP. a. atricapillus, which inhabits the region immediately westward. It thus happens that, while these puzzling birds are practically, if not absolutely, indistinguishable fromP. a. atricapillusthey can hardly be considered exactly the same, since they are everywhere widely cut off from the latter by the very extensive area occupied byP. a. septentrionalis.”—Ridgway.
[46]Shading into the following variety,C. f. occidentalis, upon the lower levels.
[47]“The Birds of Cheney, Washington,” The Condor, Vol. VIII., Jan., 1906, p. 25 [No scientific name given].
[48]“The Birds of N. and M. America,” Vol. III., p. 659.
[49]Cooper and Suckley, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. XII., pt. II., 1860, p. 185.
[50]Rev. S. H. Goodwin in “The Condor,” Vol. VII., No. 4, p. 100.
[51]The Auk, Vol. XX., July, 1903, p. 283.
[52]“Pacific Sportsman,” Vol. 2, June, 1905, p. 270.
[53]The Condor, Vol. VII., July, August, 1905, p. 100.
[54]Birds of Gray’s Harbor, Wash., Auk, Vol. IX., Jan., 1892, p. 46.
[55]Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., N. Y., Vol. III., p. 149.
[56]The Auk, Vol. IX., Oct., 1892, p. 396.
[57]The Auk, Vol. XV., Jan., 1898, p. 18.
[58]Auk, Vol. XIX., Apr., 1902, p. 138.
[59]Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1893, p. 54.
[60]Cat. B. C. Birds Prov. Mus., Victoria, 1904, p. 52.
[61]C. W. and J. H. Bowles in The Auk, Vol. XV., Apr., 1898, p. 139.
[62]Ridgway (B. of N. & M. Am.) recognizes two color phases of this bird, a white- and a yellow-bellied. In the latter the plumage of upperparts inclines more strongly to olivaceous.
[63]Auk, Vol. IX., Jan. 1892, p. 44.
[64]Bendire, Life Histories N. A. Birds, Vol. II., pp. 217, 218.
[65]Bendire, Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 219.
[66]The Hummingbirds (Rep. Nat. Mus., 1890, pp. 253-383, plate I).
[67]These words are used advisedly. The case reported from the sea-wall of Santa Cruz County, California, claimsnonest and onlyoneegg. If this be not a case of misidentification, then it is an example of freak nesting utterly at variance with all Swift traditions, and with much that is actually known concerning the habits of this species.The classic instance reported from Seattle in the columns of the Auk (Vol. V., ’88, p. 424) of a nest “made of straws, chips, paper, etc.,” proved to concern the handiwork of the Purple Martin (Progne subis), but the mistake was a not unnatural one in view of the then rarity of the Martin.
The classic instance reported from Seattle in the columns of the Auk (Vol. V., ’88, p. 424) of a nest “made of straws, chips, paper, etc.,” proved to concern the handiwork of the Purple Martin (Progne subis), but the mistake was a not unnatural one in view of the then rarity of the Martin.
[68]Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., 1895, p. 176.
[69]Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 185.
[70]Allan Brooks in The Auk, Vol. XXVI., Jan. 1909.
[71]The Auk, vol. V., 1888, p. 253.
[72]“Birds of Ohio,” p. 350.
[73]The Wilson Bulletin, No. 39, June, 1902, p. 63.
[74]Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 107.