Subject: Re: Kingfishers
Date: Mar 12 13:40:21 1998
From: "S&C Richardson" - salix at halcyon.com


Cliff Drake reported...
> This morning at the Chittenden Locks I saw a m/f pair of Kingfishers
> flying together, the first pair I've seen together this winter.

Winter technically, yes, but kingfishers may be among the birds feeling
springtime on the way, especially if they've been hanging out in adjacent
territories for several months.

What do we know about the timing of kingfisher migration in Washington? Not
much, according to my reading. (Enlighten me, Tweeters, if you please.) I just
looked at a copy of Bird-Lore, from way back when, and found "Remarks on the
habits of the kingfisher on the New Hampshire seacoast" by Henry Carey. In that
article, Carey describes springtime arrival at Portsmouth: "...he has come as
punctually as if driven by clockwork, in this, the first week of April..."

I expect kingfishers, to the extent they migrate from/to this state, will soon
be on the move. I haven't reviewed BBA data, but some Washington nesting
records include these: nesting 6-8 April 1916 at Smith Island; sets of fresh
eggs from 6 May to 13 June (mean date 15 May; Bowles 1921:9); nest found 17 May
1925 in steep bank of Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon Island (Maddock 1925:59);
fledglings seen 18 June 1897 at La Push (R. T. Young); pair feeding young on 5
Jun 1923 at Bumping Lake, Yakima County (Ellis 1923).

With an incubation period of 22 days and a fledging period of 27-29 days, it
seems clear kingfisher pairs are getting together in late March, or certainly
during April. But are these breeders "permanent" residents or partial migrants?

The answer is complicated by the kingfishers' solitude. While both males and
females have been present in Washington through the winter, they have been
noted individually in almost all cases. Because the two sexes maintain separate
territories during winter, this is not surprising. But it does muddy the
picture: are some kingfishers about to return to Washington from points
unknown, or have pairs simply been separated by a few hundred meters over the
past several months, a distance they will soon reduce for the sake of
reproduction?

Those Tweeters who have been keeping track of kingfishers this winter may begin
to gather clues to this mystery over the coming weeks. I will continue to
compile reports and promise a summary once we're past the migratory period.
--
Scott Richardson
northeast Seattle
salix at halcyon.com