BT Wild ART - A unique Journey to the wilderness: Uncommon

Hello friends, hope you all are doing fine, do you know during the monsoon season forest remains closed for visitors? The new season will start from 1^st week of October hope the season will offer some exciting moments till the time I will keep you updated with birding trips, keeping finger cross for an upcoming trip.

Since we are in birding season let us continue with excellent bird story today as well. After Chiplun trip Kingfisher has made special space in my mind so I was reading more about the bird and realize that one more type of KF, which is also unique and colorful, but hardly people know about it hence I decided to bring another type of KF that is “Common Kingfisher”. Just don’t go by the name “Common” it is uncommon with habits and sighting so let’s meet not so common KF in the next section

The encounter

Before we get into the topic let me narrate my experience with this lovely bird. I had seen Common KF many times in different places but most of the time with little distance but still the colors mesmerized me so I wanted to capture it with kill this is was my dream. With this dream, I always visit wetland near Seawoods and wait for some action. Once I went to this place with Poorva and Deepti to show them Flamingos but never thought I will get KF as a bonus. Both of them were done with Flamingos and were waiting for me to close the day. I was just about to call a day but I got occupied in action of cormorants due to which I asked them to wait and started focusing on cormorants, while I was busy with it, suddenly both of them indicated me to stop and look towards my right side. The moment I turned, it was a big surprise waiting for me; it was a dream come true, I had never imagined that this beautiful color KF will come so close for a photoshoot and that is to with fish in its beak, I was like over-excited and jumped into taking photo luckily it gave me reasonable opportunity to take few shots before taking flight. Such sighting is extremely rare and hence it is part of the blog post, you will understand when you will visit DSLR section.

The uncommon

The Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), is one of Britain’s most brightly colored and interesting birds. It is also known as Eurasian kingfisher and river kingfisher

It is a small kingfisher with seven subspecies recognized within its wide distribution across Eurasia and North Africa. It is resident in much of its range but migrates from areas where rivers freeze in winter

This sparrow-sized bird has a typical short-tailed, large-headed kingfisher profile; it has blue upperparts, orange under parts and a long bill

The specialty of this bird is diving for catching a fish, one expert photographer waited for 17 years to capture a diving reflection of this lovely bird. It feeds mainly on fish, caught by diving, and has special visual adaptations to enable it to see prey underwater

The wings are opened underwater and the open eyes are protected by the transparent third eyelid. The bird raises beak-first from the surface and flies back to its perch. At the perch, the fish is adjusted until it is held near its tail and beaten against the perch several times. Once dead, the fish is swallowed head-first

The female is identical in appearance to the male except that her lower mandible is orange-red with a black tip. The juvenile is similar to the adult, but with duller and greener upperparts and paler underparts. Its bill is black, and the legs are initially black

The common kingfisher has no song. The flight call is a short sharp whistle, “CHEE” repeated two or three times. Anxious birds emit a harsh, shrit-it-it and nestlings call for food with a churning noise

Common kingfishers are important members of ecosystems and good indicators of freshwater community health

The highest densities of breeding birds are found in habitats with clear water, which permits optimal prey visibility, and trees or shrubs on the banks. These habitats have also the highest quality of water, so the presence of this bird confirms the standard of the water

The color of common KF includes orange colored legs, blue/green color wings, bright blue color rump, and tail, bright orange underparts and white bib underneath their beaks, on their throats

Common KF has very keen eyesight. The kingfisher has a monocular vision (in which each eye is used separately) in the air and binocular vision (in which both eyes are used together) in water. The underwater vision is not as a sharp as in the air, however, the ability to judge the distance of moving prey is more important than the sharpness of the image

Like all kingfishers, the Common Kingfisher is highly territorial. Since it must eat around 60% of its body weight each day, it is essential to have control over a suitable stretch of river. If another kingfisher enters its territory, both birds ‘display’ from perches and fights may occur. One bird will grab the other's beak and try to hold it underwater

The qualities are just unlimited hence need to close the blog here, please visit DSLR section and share your feedback so as I can serve you better