No. 4 Kingfishers




(Note: Click on photos to enlarge image)

The Common Kingfisher is one of the most spectacular birds that we are occasionally lucky enough to see by a riverside or lake, or even at the seashore.

Its vivid flash of turquoise-blue can be suddenly glimpsed as the bird darts across the water surface or as it dives almost vertically to catch small fish with its disproportionally large bill. It is harder to see when it sits motionless on a waterside perch as it can easily merge into background shadows. Sometimes a Kingfisher can be seen hovering briefly before diving, and the attached photo shows this from a bird I saw at Paphos Headland.

In 2018 there were a pair of Kingfishers that were frequently seen hunting, feeding and flying around the ponds and stream by the 12th hole at Secret Valley, and one was also recently reported by the river at the 6th hole. The bird has a very distinctive shrill call ("peep"),  which is often the first clue that there is a Kingfisher nearby.


1. Scanning the water from the SV dam



2. Male Kingfisher, waiting for lunch ...



3. Hovering at Paphos shoreline



4. Male Kingfisher on rocky shore


There is one other species of Kingfisher that is occasionally seen in Cyprus, and that is the Pied Kingfisher. This is a little larger than the Common Kingfisher and, as its name indicates, has purely black and white colouration. I was lucky enough to see one at Secret Valley last year and got a couple of photos as it skimmed across the water of the ponds.



5. Pied Kingfisher at SV pond

Note: All photographs and text by Trevor Fordham


Comments

  1. JeniJ10 May 2019 at 14:11

    Brilliant photograph of the Pied Kingfisher and the lilies 😀

    ReplyDelete

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