Sitting here at the computer, on the western shore of Long Lake (Thurston
Co.), I've been watching some young Belted Kingfishers this morning. We
have kingfishers here regularly, rattling and hunting over the water of our
little bay, but I thought it was odd to see a couple of them sitting quietly
for long times on some of the branches of the alders that overhang the
water. A close look confirmed that they have the slightly brownish
breast-band of juveniles, and one, at least, has a crest that is clearly
darker, another mark of the juvenal plumage according to Bent (Cuckoos,
Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, and their allies, p. 118). I haven't seen any of
parental feeding activity Bent describes, nor any of the activity of an
adult teaching a juvenile how to fish. The only one with clear female
markings has been perched much of the time on the branches of an alder that
fell into the lake last year, and I now see that she has so much of the
adult female rusty band that I should count her as the likely mother of the
group, rather than a sister, so I guess there are only two juveniles.
Still, I haven't seen her interacting with these two. One of Bent's
informants, Henry Carey, wrote (in 1909) that "The young birds leave the
earth about July 25 [in New Hampshire]. They are a sombre-looking lot, as
for several days they sit tamely about the wharfs or venture on short,
erratic flights . . . ." This is considerably earlier, but the description
of sitting tamely and making only short flights fits this pair. At one
point, they seemed to be chasing each other, engaged in some juvenile play
perhaps, and I've seen them dive into the water, making attempts at fishing,
but without coming up with a fish yet. I don't know where the nest is, but
we have quite a bank leading up to the road, covered with vegetation, and
they likely nested in there somewhere.

Oh, and another triumph! As I was starting to write this, our first Western
Tanager appeared briefly. A very pretty male, though not as spectacular as
the tanager throng Dennis Paulson was describing recently. (And I still
wonder if that wasn't a report of some wish-fulfillment dream. :-) )

I should add, BTW, that we also have at least two little families of
Mallards, each female with about 4-5 young. But, sadly, the Wood Duck
family I described a couple of weeks ago has disappeared. I first reported
a female with 10 little fluffies. A few days later, seven of the babies
came back but without a mama. I haven't seen anything of them since.
However, it's a big lake, and I can hope at least some of them are still
growing somewhere. We commonly have a few pairs of Wood Ducks along with
some bachelor males hanging around.

Burt Guttman guttmanb at evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 360-456-8447
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S.E., Olympia 98503