Kingfishers

One of the birds, a species of alcedinidae from Costa Rica is the Belted Kingfisher. The Belted Kingfisher is also a breeding bird of Nebraska in the Platte River Valley and inhabits many other states of the United States. It also inhabits Texas, Wisconsin, New York and Kansas.

The Belted Kingfisher, a not too big bird, is short legged, big-headed and has a big beak. The dominate color of the Belted Kingfisher is slate blue. It has a slate blue head, with white spot between its eyes, white chin, throat and neck, a slate blue chest band, slate blue back and upper wing coverts with little white spots and slate blue tail with many dark and light bands.

The adult male bird has an entirely white belly while the adult female bird has white below with a reddish stomach band stretched out down her flanks.

Similar species: In the United States, only the Ringed Kingfisher of South Texas is similar. It is apparently alike but is larger and has a totally reddish belly band. The Belted Kingfisher watches from its perch on a limb or stump by a stream, flutters over water and plunges head first into water in pursuit of fish. Because of its size the fish the Kingfisher catches are small minnow sized fish.

It is an ordinary migrant, summer inhabitant, and an unusual winter native across the state of Nebraska. The Kingfisher's migrations transpires from the end of February to the middle of March in the springtime and during the middle of November in autumn.

During the nesting season the bird stays in the Platte River Valley Region and along the Little Blue River on the Eastern Plain of Nebraska. Scientist discovered the greatest breeding density in river channel island, and in wet prairies. Because this species burrows its nest in embankments and feeds almost particularly on fish, it stays near the embankments of streams and pond areas. Other people found Belted Kingfishers along river, stream and pond habitats in western Kansas too. One birder reported an active nest burrow in western Wisconsin that was about 3 miles from the nearest water. The Belted Kingfisher takes advantage of added foliage growth in the river channel because of the increased numbers of tree limbs along the river. The bird uses these limbs for hunting perches. Scouring action by moving ice in a stream channel greatly reduced the creation of banks and steep slopes needed for nest burrow construction. Belted Kingfishers stayed away from streams completely wild with shoreline growth in Michigan. The population of Kingfishers expanded when beavers flooded the area, making open water areas. Human activity can cause sites suitable for nest building. This includes railroad and road cuts and sand and gravel pits. Bird watchers found some nests in Minnesota and the location of the natural nest sites appeared on unnatural banks formed by man made construction. These areas provided the majority of nest sites.

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