November 16, 2007

RIVER WATCHER

WHAT A WAY TO GO!

Rex Burress

Doing my usual thing, watching the river, I was delighted to see a kingfisher dash from its snag-lookout post and plunge into a pool, emerging from those murky depths with a fish!

The kingfisher is among the regular cast of creatures to watch along the Feather River, one of those resident birds you can depend on being there. They are shy, and you can expect them to go flashing away in a rolling flight if they think there is someone watching them.

Often they chatter as they fly away as if annoyed. Animal character is as pronounced as the personality of a person, and you can recognize many birds at a distance by the mere movement they make. Expert bird watchers call it the "Zzzzz" of birding; the ability to recognize a species by the way it acts. Nature is ever-changing, yet you can rely on the constancy of habits.

The local species is called "Belted Kingfisher," (Ceryle alcyon), due to the white collar around its neck and the "belt-band" of blue across the chest. That blueness covers the back and also their jaunty "crew-cut"ruffled feathers on a large head, and most particularly unique is that the female has the colorful reddish chest markings while the male's chest is plain white. In most bird species, it is the male that sports the color.

In family life, a pair dig a deep tunnel on a steep river bank and attend their eggs in that darkened interior. The babes are fed in complete darkness, and you wonder how they manage to maneuver in that dank cave, or how the young must react to light once they leave the nest. The bank swallow is about the only other local bird to dig tunnels for nesting.

Kingfishers are found all across America, and extend that range into Canada in the summer when waters become clear of ice so they can use their diving skills. It is especially thrilling to see them cruising Spanish Creek in the upper Feather River watershed, near Oakland Camp, swooping along over tumbling rapids and leafy rhubarb, and then settling onto their favorite snag to watch for one of those creek rainbows!

What a way to go! Diving headfirst into the water to catch a fish! It's the only way they know, so you will find them only where fish are present. Can you imagine, sitting on a limb, spotting the faint sign of a proper sized fish, and plunging hard into the dim depths trying to put the beak on breakfast! Potential monsters live there, yet kingfishers ply their trade even in alligator infested swamps in the south.

There aren't many birds that dive for a living. Terns do it, and sometimes you can see the large Caspian Tern from the sea cruising up and down the river looking over the possibilities. They are more graceful than the kingfisher, and neatly slice the water when diving, but it's a floppy mess when they try to get air-bourne again. Brown pelicans along the coast are the other major birds that dive headfirst for a living. Osprey will dive onto fish going feet-first rather than using their head.

So if you be down along the river some day, and see old Mr. Kingfisher perform his aquatic aerobics, know that it is just another way of life for one of the many creature's in nature's kingdom of diverse performers! "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time..." Ecclesiastes 3:11.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

Ecclesiastes 3:1