alcedo atthis

Geographic Range

Alcedo atthis is found throughout Europe and Asia as far east as Japan. They are also found in Africa, south of the Sahara. Common kingfishers are year long residents in their southern habitats, while northern populations travel south during the winter to escape freezing water. Alcedo atthis is the only species of kingfisher in much of its European range.

Habitat

Common kingfishers are found on the shores of lakes, ponds, streams, and in wetlands. They have even been known to fish in brackish waters, especially during the winter months, when other bodies of water may be frozen.

Physical Description

Common kingfishers are renowned for their iridescent blue plumage. The entire upper portion of the bird: wings, back, and head are completely blue. The underbelly and a small patch underneath the eyes are rich chestnut. The throat and a small part of the side of the neck is bright white. They have small red feet. Their beaks are long, sharp and strong for the purpose of catching and holding prey. Males and females are very similar except for their beaks. A male’s beak is jet black, while the lower half of a female’s beak is chestnut. Juvenile’s are slightly more green and duller than adults.

Reproduction

Mating is the only time that Alcedo atthis individuals are not solitary. At the beginning of the mating season, males will chase females through the trees, producing a loud whistle. Common kingfishers will find a new mate each year. Mating only occurs in the warmer months of the year, starting in April and ending sometimes as late as October.

Mating Systemmonogamous

In about mid-March nesting begins. The male and female work together to dig a hole into a bank along a water source. Common kingfishers prefer steep banks. The holes are of various depths and are dug into various types of soil. Usually a hole between 15 and 30 cm long is dug, but on occasion some as deep as 1.2 meters have been discovered. They may nest in clay, rock, or sandy ground. Nests also vary in the distance they are above the water, with the distance varying from 0.5 to 37 meters above the water level.

Both parents will raise and feed the young. However, the female will do most of the work. Common kingfishers will brood 2 to 3 clutches a year. These clutches consist usually of 6 or 7 eggs, but there may be as many as 10.

Both males and females help to raise the young. For 19-21 days they incubate the eggs. Both will incubate during the day, only the female at night. Both have active roles in brooding and feeding the young, but the female does most of the work. One parent will hunt, then return with a fish exactly the right size for the young, they will also hold it by the tail so that the young can swallow the fish head first. When the young are able, they will eagerly wait at the opening of the burrow to be fed. After 23-27 days the young fledge and emerge from the nest.

Lifespan/Longevity

Common kingfishers can live for as long as 15 years. The average lifespan is 7 years. However, the first months of development are the most dangerous with only 50% of the young surviving to adulthood.

Behavior

Common kingfishers are very territorial, as are all kingfishers (Alcedinidae). This is mainly because they must eat around 60% of their body weight each day. They will even defend their area from their mates and offspring. For most of the year individuals are solitary, roosting in heavy cover next to their favorite hunting spot. If another kingfisher enters its territory, both birds will sit on a perch some distance from each other and engage in territorial displays. This usually entails displaying beaks and plumage. Occasional fights also occur, where a bird will grab the other’s beak and try to hold them under water.

Home Range

Territory size is highly variable. Size depends on food availability, the quality and availability of nesting sites and individual behavior.

Communication and Perception

Common kingfishers have advanced eyesight, with the ability to polarize light, reducing the reflection of light off of water. They also learn to compensate for refraction, allowing them to catch prey more effectively. Common kingfishers communicate vocally. They are well known for their long, trilling call which sounds like a repetition of “chee”. When mating, a male will whistle loudly to a female and chase her above and through the trees. In a dive for prey, a membrane covers their eyes and they rely solely on touch to know when to snap their jaws shut.

Great Tit Bird

 Green and yellow with a striking glossy black head with white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. It is a woodland bird which has readily adapted to man-made habitats to become a familiar garden visitor. It can be quite aggressive at a birdtable, fighting off smaller tits. In winter it joins with blue tits and others to form roaming flocks which scour gardens and countryside for food.

The Great Tit (Parus major) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe in any sort of woodland. It is resident, and most Great Tits do not migrate. In the past this species was considered a ring species with several subspecies covering a wide distribution, but these have now been separated.

Great Tits come in many races, but they fall into three groups. Great Tits in temperate Europe and Asia are essentially green above and yellow below. Great Tits in China, Korea, Japan and southeastern Russia are green above and white or yellow-tinged white below, and Great Tits in India and south-east Asia are grey above and whitish below.

The Great Tit is easy to recognize, large in size at 14 cm, with a broad black line (broader in the male) down its otherwise yellow front. The neck and head are black with white cheeks and ear coverts. Upper parts are olive. It has a white wingbar and outer tail feathers. In young birds the black is replaced by brown, and the white by yellow.

It is, like other tits, a vocal bird, and has a large variety of calls, of which the most familiar is a “teacher, teacher”, also likened to a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel. 

Great Tits are cavity nesters, breeding in a hole that is usually inside a tree, although occasionally in a wall, rock face, and they will readily take to nest boxes. The number in the clutch is often very large, but seven or eight white spotted red eggs are normal, with bigger clutches being laid by two or even more hens. The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed.

The Great Tit is a popular garden bird due to its acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or seed. Its willingness to move into nest boxes has made it a valuable study subject in ornithology, and it is one of the best studied birds in the world.

Black Redstart

 Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) breeds throughout temperate Eurasia and migrates south across its range during winter.

In the western parts of its range, European breeding Black Redstarts migrate to southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East during winter. But almost all Black Redstarts that breed further east in Central Asia, the Himalaya and East Asia winter in the Indian subcontinent, mainly in central and northern India.

A general upright stance, and a peculiar quivering motion of its tail makes the Black Redstart stand out. This restless bird frequents backyards and the plains of India, from the end of September through March.

The term ‘Redstart’ has been picked up from the old English term ‘Red’ describing the colour, and ‘steort’ meaning ‘tail’ in the proto-Germanic language, which is assumed to be the ancestral language of the Germanic group of languages.

The small robin-sized bird (14-15 cm) breeds across the Himalayan Range. It occurs almost throughout Europe and Asia and in portions of Africa and breed in the high altitude areas of Kashmir, Ladakh, Tibet and the Central Himalayan Range. In their breeding range, the bird is observed to be quite shy and elusive in nature whereas it sees a complete change in character by being one of the most pleasant and friendly of our garden birds during their winter stay here in the city.

In India, the bird essentially sticks to areas near wetlands, open cultivation, scrubs and pleasant gardens and orchards. It savours worms, insects like grasshoppers, or fallen fruits with a curious croaking, a short tsip, tucc-tucc every now and then. While it mostly forages on the ground for grub, it may also catch insects in flight at times.

The males display black or dark-grey upper parts, black breast, and rufous underparts. The females and younger first-year males however, are almost entirely dusky-brown with rufous-orange wash on their lower flanks and belly. Two races of these birds P. phoenicuroides (in Western Himalayas) and P. Rufiventris (in Central and Eastern Himalayas), both come to Delhi in the winters. The primary difference between the two races is that the male of the former has a grey crown, nape, and lower back while these are much darker in the latter.

The bird has a black bill (beak) and legs and the eye colour is mostly dark brown, when seen in good light, else appear dark.

Both sexes display a bright rufous-orange tail that is best seen in flight or when they flash it open while shivering (tail movement) when perched. They do this most often after relishing a meal from the vicinity.

After this month, the bird will return to its preferred breeding grounds. During its stay here, it is generally spread throughout the country, even till the extreme south of the peninsula, frequenting groves of trees, orchards, gardens, and the vicinity of old buildings like the Humayun’s Tomb and Hauz Khas in the capital.

The males pair-up and rear their young with females, thereby protecting their partners and offspring against other males. It is not uncommon for these males to also mate with other females in the area. If you’re sitting still somewhere, keep an eye out on low branches serve as perches for the Black Redstarts. They tend to have preferred perches they return to, unless disturbed.

Red-throated Loon

 Red-throated Loons are monogamous, but little is known about the longevity of their bonds or where and how pairs form. Pairs use displays to defend territories (chiefly the nesting pond and nest vicinity) against intruders, including humans. Adults may raise or lower the neck, splash-dive, slap the water with their feet (recalling a beaver tail-slap), to warn intruders, or may rush across the water with wings partly open and head extended, in threat. 

    Pairs are often observed in what researchers call a “plesiosaur posture,” in which they raise the body out of the water, extend the neck, raise the wings, and tip the bill downward. A similar display known as the “penguin posture” involves raising the body vertically, stretching out the neck, and pointing the head and bill downward. Males and females perform these displays typically at other Red-throated Loons who intrude on their territory. 

Both parents tend and feed the young. After the young birds are several weeks old, they sometimes move to a different pond or lake. Adults and young move toward coastlines in preparation for migration, which occurs at least partly at night. Daytime movements of many thousands are often seen along marine coasts. When foraging over the ocean, this species is highly mobile and may dive for prey, much like the Northern Gannet, which occupies a similar niche in winter, though gannets can consume larger prey and forage farther from shore.

Habitat

Red-throated Loons breed in rugged tundra and taiga wetlands in both lowlands and highlands, up to about 3,500 feet elevation. Their ability to spring into flight without first pattering on the water (as other loons have to do) permits them to use small ponds for nesting. They do use larger lakes in places where larger loons are absent. In migration, they fly along ocean shorelines and also along the shores of large lakes (such as the Great Lakes), but their precise migration routes are not known. Foul weather sometimes grounds migrants in places where they would not otherwise land, such as rivers and small lakes in interior North America. Wintering birds are found only in shallower marine waters near land, and in major estuaries and sounds. They are very rarely seen far out to sea.

Food

Red-throated Loons eat a variety of fish, leeches, copepods, crustaceans, mollusks, squid, polychaete worms, and aquatic insects. Among fish they eat herring, capelin, brook trout, stickleback, sculpin, tomcod, arctic char, cod, and sand lance. When breeding, they forage away from nesting areas and nursery ponds, usually in larger lakes and rivers, often in estuaries. Red-throated Loons hunt prey by diving underwater, swimming by kicking with the legs and then grasping prey with the bill. They often locate prey first by dipping their head underwater and looking around as they rest on the water’s surface.

Nesting

Males select the nest site, usually in wetlands at the edge of a shallow, small pond or on a small island in the pond. In the high arctic, they nest on larger ponds. Nests are always built on vegetation, not on rocks.

NEST DESCRIPTION

Both male and female build the nest, either on the shoreline or in shallow water near it. Nests are mounds of moss, decayed vegetation, grasses, sedges, and mud, sometimes lined with dry grass, gathered from the immediate vicinity of the nest and formed with the feet and body. In some cases, no nest material is used, just a depression in the vegetation. Nests average about 18 inches across and about 3 inches above waterline; the interior depression averages 9.5 inches across and 1.6 inches deep.

NESTING FACTS

• Clutch Size: 1-2 eggs
• Number of Broods: 1 brood
• Egg Length: 2.7-3.0 in (6.82-7.67 cm)
• Egg Width: 1.7-1.8 in (4.41-4.55 cm)
• Incubation Period: 24-31 days

Egg Description:

Elongated, with variable color ranging from brown to olive, with blotches or speckles.

Condition at Hatching:

Downy and active; capable of swimming within 12 to 24 hours.

Conservation

Red-throated Loons occur across North America, Europe, and eastern Asia. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 260,000. The group rates the species a 10 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score, indicating it is a species of low conservation concern. In the late twentieth century, scientists recorded long-term population declines of about 50%, in some cases possibly due to lake acidification. These declines appear to have stabilized. Oil spills, hunting (in northern Canada and parts of Europe), degradation of marine habitats, industrial activity in breeding areas, overfishing of prey, and entanglement in fishing nets all pose threats to Red-throated Loons.

Northern Lapwing

Northern Lapwing: Large, unique plover with black breast, face, crown, and long upright head plumes; back is green-tinged purple and copper. Belly and sides are white, uppertail is white with a black tip, and undertail coverts are rich rufous-orange. Wings are dark with white tips; legs are pink. Sexes are similar. Winter adult shows less black on face and has white edges on dark back feathers. Juvenile resembles winter adult but has fine spots on dark back, and shorter head plumes.

Range and Habitat

Northern Lapwing: This species is found in a wide variety of open areas with bare ground or low grasses. It is widespread in Europe and Asia; this bird occasionally wanders in the autumn to eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, extreme eastern Quebec, and the northeastern United States from Maine to Maryland.

Breeding and Nesting

Northern Lapwing: Breeds in a wide variety of open habitats ranging from wetlands to pastures and old fields. Lays four or five brown eggs with black markings that are primarily incubated by the female for 26 to 28 days. Chicks are independent soon after hatching but are guarded by one or both parents.

Foraging and Feeding

Northern Lapwing: Feeds in open fields and areas of bare ground, where it hunts for insects and small invertebrates by sight. Will run a few steps, pause and probe in ground, run a few steps.

Vocalization

Northern Lapwing: Call is a plaintive whistle “peewit.”

Similar Species

Northern Lapwing: Rare vagrant and unlikely to be confused with any species in North America.

Where and when to see them

Lapwings are found on farmland throughout the UK particularly in lowland areas of northern England, the Borders and eastern Scotland. In the breeding season prefer spring sown cereals, root crops, permanent unimproved pasture, meadows and fallow fields. They can also be found on wetlands with short vegetation. In winter they flock on pasture and ploughed fields. The highest known winter concentrations of lapwings are found at the Somerset Levels, Humber and Ribble estuaries, Breydon Water/Berney Marshes, the Wash and Morecambe Bay.

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