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Belted Kingfisher : The King Belted Kingfisher Neqaiq If you've ever lived or travelled on a river almost anywhere in Alaska, you've seen or heard the King. They're fast, though, so to get a good look at them you've got to be quick. But they're also loud, and you can't confuse their tell-tale rattle-call for that of any other bird. Get out your binocs and you'll find they match their nickname, "the King." The first thing you notice about kingfishers is their bushy crest and stout bill. With such a large sharp bill they might even be mistaken for woodpeckers. You know they're kingfishers, though, when they dive headlong into a lake or river and come up with a fish in their mouth. The second thing you notice is the male's white shirt and blue bowtie. The female has two bowties, one blue, the other rusty red. Both sexes appear to be wearing blue-gray tail-coats and, for the life of me, seem like they're headed for a wedding party. Yupik people I've spoken to call the Belted kingfisher, "Neqaiq," the translation, "fish (food)-stealing bird," recognizing that the bird both eats fish and is a competitor for the same resource as the people of the Delta. It's curious this is a name that also describes the camp robber, raven, magpie and gull because of their similar habit of filching fish and other food. The kingfisher's scientific name, Megaceryle alcyon, simply means "large kingfisher." According to Greek legend, Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus, god of the winds. After her devoted husband Ceyx drowned at sea in a storm, the gods took pity on Alcyone and transformed her into a kingfisher so she could be close to him. Almost as soon as the ice goes out in Spring the male kingfisher is back from his winter travels. He immediately stakes out a feeding territory and nesting site. When the female arrives a little later, they pair up with seemingly little fanfare and then remain together as they share all of the domestic activities of nest building and child rearing. Often this means an awful lot of work, especially if they have to construct a new nest. These nests are mostly excavated in the sides of river banks and can take up to three weeks to dig, depending on the type of soil. The tunnel to the nest is three inches in diameter and can be up to 15 feet long. It's usually only 3-7 feet long, however, and leads to a rounded chamber about 6 x 10 inches, often lined with clean white fish bones and scales from ejected food pellets. Sometimes nests are built in hollow stumps and tree cavities. Both male and female birds incubate the 6-7 white eggs for a little more than three weeks. After the young hatch, the male does double duty (compared to the female) feeding their offspring. The young are born without feathers, but within a week feathers appear in sheaths and stay unopened for two more weeks. In this state the baby birds look more like tiny porcupines. On the 17-18th day after hatching, all the feathers burst forth from their sheaths within 24 hours and the porkies suddenly turn into birds. During the fledgling stage, the kingfisher family stays within a 100 yards of each other, and the parents rattle-call constantly as they feed fish to their youngsters. Inside of a week or two after leaving the nest the young learn to catch and eat fish on their own. This is no easy task, as they awkwardly try to imitate their parents, first hovering 20-40 feet above the water, spiral diving into the water, disappearing for a few seconds under the surface as they search for and seize their prey, then quickly rising and flying back up to their perch. They next have to beat the fish to death on the limb, toss it into the air and swallow it headfirst. The young not only have to learn to catch fish. Tadpoles, frogs, insects and their larvae, other young birds, mice and even berries all require their own special hunting strategies. After eating, kingfishers disgorge pellets of fish bones and scales and other indigestible parts of their foods. Alaskan kingfishers migrate south during winter as far as they have to in order to find open water to fish. Some, however, even travel as far as Central America and the northern parts of South America where they defend small feeding territories. They return to Alaska as soon as the winter ice has melted from the creeks and sloughs. Look and listen for them in another month or so. » List of Yupik Birds

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