a ruckus of Kingfishers

A ruckus of Kingfishers yesterday afternoon started me thinking: what was that all about? Generally Belted Kingfishers appear one at a time, announcing themselves with their signature rattle. They like to land on perches overlooking the pond, checking out the bait fish that go in and out on the tides. Generally one Kingfish or a pair 'owns' the creek, chasing away any intruders that might show up. Every year in late August there used to be a flurry of such chases which I always attributed to the appearance of migrants coming through. Now I'm not so sure.

Kingfishers nest in tunnels which they dig in sand banks. For many years, our local pair nested on the edge of an old sand mine in the hills just to the north of East Quogue with a small colony of Bank Swallows. That mine ('East Coast Mines') has greatly expanded its operations and, although, it is no longer accessible to curious birdwatchers, I had the impression that the nest site was gone; for a year or two, there were no Kingfishers patrolling Weesuck Creek on a regular basis. This year though there was a definite comeback and, in fact, the patrolling bird was, after the early spring, always a male. This strongly suggested to me that the female was at the nest sitting on eggs or brooding the young.

Yesterday afternoon, at about 2 pm, two or three birds (it sounded like more) came into the woods just outside our porch making a lot of kingfisher noise -- something like a New Year's Eve rattle. These birds would land in the trees -- usually in a dense corner of a Pitch Pine where they were high up and quite hidden. But they gave away their locations with a soft, uneven, continuous version of the signature rattle. These birds were extremely wary and, if I tried to approach their hiding tree, they would fly off to another tree yet further back in the woods or further down along the shore -- rattling away all the while.

Flying into the woods in twos and threes, hiding in the upper branches of a dense Pitch Pine and then giving away the location by calling -- none of this suggests an invasion by alien kingfishers. These were not intruders but rather young fledglings only recently out of the nest and on the wing. They come out of the nest hole after a long adolescence spent in the dark and they come flying out of a longish tunnel. By then they look almost like adults but their behavior gives them away. They are, I suspect, still being fed by the adults who must find them in their tree hideouts by following the sound of the rattles. As for me, I'll drink a glass to the return of breeding Belted Kingfishers to Weesuck Creek!

Eric Salzman