Chapter C: J. Maynard (1896) says (7)

Alexander F. Skutch has very kindly lent me his unpublished manuscript for a proposed work on the birds of the Caribbean lowlands of Central America, which contains much interesting information on this species, from which I shall quote freely. He says that, in that region, these kingfishers “begin the excavation of their burrows in February, if not earlier. Their nesting is of necessity limited to the drier season when the rivers are lowest, which in this region extends from February to the end of May. The flood waters of June often undermine and eat away the banks in which they nest, if they do not actually rise high enough to flood their tunnels. Since they begin the excavation of their burrows early and raise a single brood each year, they proceed with their task in a leisurely fashion, and one may watch long and in vain for them to return to their work.

“One morning toward the end of February I concealed myself in a blind before a burrow in a bank of sandy loam beside the Rio Morja, near the boundary between Guatemala and Honduras. The tunnel was already well advanced and went far beneath the banana plants at the top of the bank, which had been freshly cut when the river ate into the plantation at the last high water. Although I began the watch early in the morning, it was 11 o’clock before I heard the measured _kleck kleck kleck_, and turning saw one of the pair approaching from upstream. It soon entered the burrow and remained within several minutes, appearing not to notice the rough-winged swallow that fluttered before the tunnel and several times rested in the entrance while it was busy inside. On emerging, the kingfisher perched atop a banana leaf and kept up a running conversation in low rattles with its mate, out of sight around the bend up-river. In five minutes it flew upstream to join the other, calling with a loud _kleck kleck kleck_.

“Soon the pair returned together and began to work in earnest. Each time one entered the burrow there was a jet of earth thrown out behind. As the bird moved inward the jet fell short of the entrance until it could be seen no more. Doubtless the bird continued to kick the earth back until it reached the head of the excavation, and so the material loosened by the bill was gradually pushed out of the tunnel. The kingfishers invariably emerged head first, indicating that the burrow had reached its final length and had begun to widen at the far end into the nesting chamber. The bird inside called in low _klecks_, which were answered by the mate perched on a rusty tram rail, washed out by the flood, which leaned against the bank just below the burrow. They seemed to encourage each other in their dark subterranean labors. Both sexes shared equally in the toil, and as soon as one emerged and flew up beside the other on the rail, the latter went into the burrow, throwing out a jet of earth as he disappeared into the darkness. Four or five minutes was the usual period spent in the earthwork. On one occasion both were together in the burrow for a few minutes. Just after noon, while one bird was working inside, its mate became tired of waiting on the rail and flew upstream. The other, when it emerged and found itself alone, followed in this direction. Although I remained until the middle of the afternoon, the birds did not return, having worked less than an hour that day.

“I waited almost a month before daring to open the nest. I probed the length of the burrow with a slender vine, repeating the measurement several times to make sure I had reached the back. I found the burrow to be 7 feet 3 inches long, measured back this distance from the top of the bank, and tried to calculate the position of the nesting chamber from the direction of the portion of the tunnel I could see from the front. Experience with Amazon kingfishers and motmots had taught me that by far the safest way to open a burrow is to dig down behind it and make an opening in the back of the nesting chamber just large enough to reach the eggs, afterward closing it with a stone or a board and carefully covering over the excavation.

“As I began to dig almost above it, the incubating bird, who had stood its ground in face of the thrusts with the vine, flew out, uttered a few _klecks_ and headed upstream, where it perched on a giant cane leaning over the current and soon plunged for a fish. I now saw for the first time that it was the male. Like other burrow-nesting birds under the same circumstances, it seemed rather unconcerned, and this despite the fact that I afterward found it the most devoted of parents.”

Because he “had faith that the activities of birds, including their periods on the nest during incubation, are rhythmic and more or less constant for the species, rather than irregular and arbitrary,” Mr. Skutch was determined to learn how these kingfishers arranged their shifts on the nest. In his efforts to solve this problem, he was at “first baffled, next challenged, and finally surprised.” For many weary hours, during nearly two weeks, and at various hours from dawn to sunset, he patiently watched that hole in the bank, mostly with little or no results. The use of what he called a “silent monitor,” a small stick stuck upright and loosely in the entrance of the burrow, enabled him to tell that a bird had either entered or left the nest, but did not tell him the hour or the sex of the bird. His account of how he accomplished this and finally learned the secret is too long a story to be told here. But he did finally discover “that there is a single nest relief each day, early in the morning. This is comparatively easy to observe, for the bird coming to take its place in the burrow usually flies downstream sounding his powerful, metallic _kleck kleck_ at measured intervals, and so heralds his own arrival.” After three or four false starts he finally gathers courage to enter the burrow; and, after a minute and a half or two minutes, his mate launches forth and flies off upstream. The times at which the relief took place varied from 7:05 to 10:01 a. m., most of the shifts being made between seven and nine o’clock. He says, further: “After I learned what precautions were necessary in order to determine the sexes of the birds, I found that on some mornings it was the male who entered and the female who departed, while on other mornings the reverse was true. There was a regular alternation, the male entering one morning and the female the next.

“Each afternoon the incubating partner took a single recess, for food or exercise, from its long 24-hour turn on the eggs. It emerged suddenly and without warning, at some time between 1 and 4 o’clock, flew upstream to the feeding ground, leaving the nest unoccupied, and returned in half an hour to an hour. On returning, it flew downstream low above the water and entered the nest directly, without perching or calling, in a manner very different from the morning entry, since there was no mate on the nest to be advised of its arrival. Then it remained until relieved by the mate the following morning.

“Few birds incubate so continuously as the ringed kingfishers. One day the female took her afternoon recess early, and on returning remained on the nest more than 19 hours, for her mate was very late in relieving her the next morning, and did not appear until 10 o’clock. The usual period between their return in the afternoon and their relief the following morning is 16 or 17 hours.”

Mr. Skutch found another nest of this kingfisher “400 feet downstream in the same bank. I opened it only two days before the eggs hatched. The bird on the nest, with a degree of attachment I have rarely seen equaled, remained bravely in the tunnel while I probed its length, dug in the rear, took out the eggs for measurement, fitted a stone in the aperture I had made, and tamped the soil above it. All this occupied well over an hour. This burrow was 7 feet 9 inches in length and the nesting chamber, 22 inches below the surface, contained, like the last, four white eggs. The territories of these two pairs extended in opposite directions from their burrows, the birds from the upper nest always entering it from upstream and returning thither when relieved, those in the lower nest fishing in the river below it.”

_Eggs._--The ringed kingfisher apparently lays three to six eggs to a set; probably four and five are the commonest numbers. What few eggs I have seen are pure white; they vary in shape from ovate to short-ovate; and the shells are smooth and quite glossy. The measurements of 19 eggs average 43.72 by 34.52 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =46.8= by 35, 43.7 by =35.6=, and =39.7= by =32.5= millimeters.

_Young._--On the morning of March 28, the female arrived, at the first burrow examined by Mr. Skutch, at sunrise, an unusually early hour for her to appear, and seemed to be excited. He opened the burrow and found that two of the eggs had hatched. The nestlings were “pink skinned and were without the least vestige of feathers. They could already stand upright, supporting themselves on their feet and belly, and attempted to walk, which they did in a weak and tottering fashion.” Three of the eggs in the other nest hatched the same day; as he removed the stone from the rear, “a sizzling noise arose from the earth,” and two of the nestlings retreated into the tunnel with their mother, where they could not be reached.

Soon after the young in the first nest had hatched, some malicious person dug into the burrow at both ends but could not reach the young in the tunnel. Three of these nestlings eventually died, but the parents continued to feed and brood the fourth in the exposed and gaping burrow. Then, Mr. Skutch continues: “Stuffed with whole fish to the bursting point, the single nestling grew at a tremendous rate. Its eyes opened by the tenth day, when it uttered a high-pitched, trilling sound in response to its parents’ rattle. It was 14 days before the upper mandible caught up to the lower in length. The young kingfisher was beginning to defend itself with energy and bit hard with its great mandibles whenever I picked it up. A few days later it squealed and fought like a fury. When 4 weeks old it was fully feathered except for the naked belly, which rested upon the sandy floor of the foul burrow. To its biting and squealing it now added an alarm rattle almost as loud as that of the parents, which at length drew one of them, who answered in kind. Still it did not attempt to flutter, and when I placed it on the ground it could do no more than hop along with outstretched wings. It remained in the burrow a full week after it was completely feathered, and finally departed at the age of 34 or 35 days.

“Although this nestling was one of the most vociferous I ever encountered, its struggles and cries were very mild in comparison with those of the single youngster who survived in the burrow downstream.” When about 4 weeks old, it was almost as big as its parents. When he attempted to reach it from the back of the nest, “it fled through the tunnel and jumped into the river, where it spread its wings, turned upstream, and flapped its way slowly against the current. When it encountered obstacles of stranded brush it hooked its bill over them and scrambled across. Thus it led me a merry chase, wading in the muddy shallows, until a fallen banana plant stopped its wayward progress and I seized it. Unlike its neighbor of the same age upstream, it had not become accustomed to being taken in hands; its deafening screams and fierce attempts to bite made, for duration and intensity, the best efforts of the other pale to insignificance. It was ten agonized minutes before it became reconciled to me, and I let it perch on my hand until its feathers dried before returning it to the burrow. This bird left its burrow between its thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh day.”

_Plumages._--I have seen no very young birds. In immature birds, probably birds of the first year, the sexes are distinguishable. In the young male, the jugular area is dull gray washed with “cinnamon,” and the under tail coverts are pale cinnamon, both of which parts are pure white in the adult male, though some adults have the under tail coverts barred with bluish gray; the brown areas on the under parts are paler than in the adult, “ochraceous-tawny” to “cinnamon,” more or less mixed with white; these parts in the adult are rich browns, “Sanford’s brown” to “cinnamon-rufous”; the upper parts and wing coverts are dotted with small white spots, and many of the feathers have shaft streaks or median wedges of black; these parts are clear, grayish blue, or “delft blue,” in adults, without streaks; young birds also have broad, median, black streaks in the crest. Young females are similar to the young males but may be readily recognized by the broad pectoral band, which is never present in the male at any age; in the adult female this is clear bluish gray, but in the young bird it is broadly edged with rufous, or dull brown, and sometimes mainly rufous; in the young female the under wing coverts are wholly “cinnamon-rufous,” whereas in the young male these are partly white.

I have not seen enough material to determine how long these immature plumages are worn, or to learn much about the molts.

_Food._--Mr. Skutch (MS.) says on this subject: “The ringed kingfisher’s diet is rather monotonous. They live almost entirely, if not exclusively on fish, often of large size, which they catch in the regular manner of kingfishers, but being larger birds their plunges are more spectacular than those of the others.”

One day “a female flew into a balsa tree, growing beside a small stream, with a fish fully half as long as herself dangling crosswise in her bill. For more than two and a half hours by the watch she held it thus, changing her position only from one branch to another of the same tree. I was at the time watching a green kingfisher’s nest, and I could keep her in sight without additional effort. When at length I was ready to leave, she had begun to beat her fish against the limb, although it must have been dead long since. After this exhibition of stolidity, I no longer felt sorry for the ringed kingfishers because the customs of their race obliged them to sit on the nest for such long periods.”

_Behavior._--Dr. Charles W. Richmond (1893) found this species very common in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and he writes of its habits:

One morning a pair of these birds went through a very
curious performance. Attention was first called to them
by their loud rattling cry, which was kept up almost
constantly as they circled and gyrated about over the
water, occasionally dropping--not diving--into the
water, and sinking below the surface for a moment. This
maneuvering lasted some minutes, after which both birds
flew upstream uttering their ordinary note.

Two or three individuals were in the habit of passing
the night at some point on the creek back of the “I. P.”
plantation, and came over just about dusk every evening.
I noticed them for several months, and was struck with
the regularity of their coming, and the course taken by
each on its way to the roost. The birds could be heard a
considerable distance away, just before dusk, uttering
their loud single “chuck” at every few beats of the wings.
They appeared to come from their feeding grounds, often
passing over the plantation opposite, probably to cut off
a bend in the river. One of the birds invariably passed
close to the corner of the laborers’ quarters, though at
considerable height, and the other near a trumpet tree some
distance away. The third bird was only a casual visitor.
At times the birds came together, but usually there was an
interval of several minutes. Their routes met at a turn of
the creek a few rods back of the house, where they usually
sounded their rattling notes and dropped down close to the
water, which they followed to the roost. This was a huge
spreading tree, covered with parasitic plants and numerous
vines, which hung in loops and festoons from the limbs. On
one occasion I shot at one of the birds as it came clucking
overhead, and caused it to drop several small fish. A
female nearly ready to deposit eggs was shot October 9.

Referring to the behavior of ringed kingfishers, Mr. Skutch (MS.) writes: “Watercourses are their highways, and, like men, they are frequently reluctant to leave them. One day, ascending in a motor launch the Toloa Creek in Honduras, we drove a ringed kingfisher before us for possibly a mile. Each time the boat approached he would leave his perch, fly a few hundred feet ahead, and finally alight in a branch overhanging the stream. Here he would wait until the launch was almost opposite him, then fly ahead of it a few hundred feet more. Only after this procedure had been repeated many times did he finally double over the bank and return downstream.”

He noticed, while studying the program of nest relief, that these kingfishers “showed a certain amount of formalism in their natures.” One morning while he was on watch, “at 7:30 the male emerged from the burrow without warning [and without waiting to be relieved by the female in the usual way] and flew upstream as usual. I was surprised at this unexpected behavior, but probably no more than his mate. Five minutes later she appeared from the direction of his departure and perched in a trumpet tree growing on the bank a few rods from the burrow, where she often rested before going to relieve the male on the nest. Soon he reappeared and the female, who had not moved, greeted him with a rapid, low rattle, which was evidently a scolding. A minute later he flew upstream again. I thought now the female would certainly enter, it was her day upon the nest, but such an unwelcomed entry would have been a breach in formality, beneath the dignity of a well-bred kingfisher matron. She delayed another minute, as though considering what course to follow, then flew off after the delinquent. Soon they both returned, but separately, and there was a rather lengthy conversation between the pair as they perched on the banana leaves near the entrance of the burrow. Finally, after flying back and forth several times before it, the male entered, rather sheepishly we may suppose, while his mate continued to _kleck_ from her perch in a low voice.

“Mrs. kingfisher had won her point. She delayed a seemly interval for him to compose himself for her reception, then entered herself with the usual warning. I shall probably never know what passes between them in the fraction of a minute they must be together in the nesting chamber, but whatever form of greeting they indulge in, we may well suppose it was not as cordial as usual. The male came out in record time, about one minute after his mate’s entry, and turned upstream, klecking loudly, a free bird at last.”

A change in the behavior of the two males was noted after the young had hatched in the two nests, of which Mr. Skutch (MS.) writes: “The males of both nests, both of whom happened to be free that day, behaved differently than on previous mornings. After being relieved, they had gone off as usual to their respective territories up and down the stream; but instead of remaining there, as they had always done before the eggs hatched, they soon returned to perch at no great distance from their nests, and loudly protested my presence. In their excitement, both perched at the same time in the trumpet tree which grew on the bank of the river between the two nests, and was apparently the boundary between their territories. They stood side by side on a branch, their beautiful, white-barred, slate-colored wings spread until they almost touched. One raised his crest, but the other laid his flat, and, with open bills and angry _klecks_, each defied the other to cross the accepted frontier.”

_Voice._--The same patient observer says: “Now that there were nestlings, I heard an utterance from the kingfishers that I had never heard before. It was really not so much a new note as a different manner of using the old familiar one, for their entire vocabulary consists of a sound that to our ears is suggested by the syllable _kleck_, but they employ their single word in a great variety of ways to express different meanings and emotions. A single loud _kleck_, uttered at measured intervals, punctuates their flight; a softer, rapidly repeated _kleck_ is the signal that a bird wishes to relieve his mate on the nest; and now there were nestlings to guard they expressed their anxiety by a very loud, rapid, mechanical klecking, continued with momentary pauses so long as danger seemed to threaten. This harsh, deafening rattle was uttered while the bird perched with the bill open, the mandibles held motionless, and the tail vibrating rapidly up and down. I never heard another bird make more noise when its nestlings seemed to be in danger, nor give more evident signs of distress, yet, in common with other birds which nest underground, they never darted at me nor made any demonstration. They merely perched in full sight and rattled interminably.”

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Mexico, the Lesser Antilles, Central and South America; casual in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas; nonmigratory.

The range of the ringed kingfisher extends =north= to Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands and San Blas); Tamaulipas (Rio Cruz and Tampico); Honduras (Toloa and Lancetilla); northern Colombia (Cartagena, Sabanilla, and Santa Marta); northern Venezuela (Lake Valencia); the Lesser Antilles (Goyave); British Guiana (Georgetown and Blairmont); Surinam (Paramaribo); and northern Brazil (Santarem and Capim River). =East= to Brazil (Capim River and Cantagalla); Uruguay (Rio Negro); and Argentina (Villegas, Puerto Santa Elena, and Tierra del Fuego). =South= to southern Argentina (Tierra del Fuego); and southern Chile (Chonos Archipelago). =West= to Chile (Chonos Archipelago and Chiloe Island); western Peru (Huachos and Lima); western Ecuador (Tumbez, Bucay, Babahoyo, and Vinces); western Colombia (Cali and Honda); Panama (San Miguel and Alminante Bay); Costa Rica (Pozo Azul and Bolson); western Guatemala (Rio Morja); Jalisco (Las Penas Island); and Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands).

_Casual records._--The only United States record of this species is a specimen in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia that was collected on the American side of the Rio Grande, near Laredo, Texas, on June 2, 1888.

_Egg dates._--Guatemala: March.

Mexico: March 21 and 30.

Peru: May 29.

CHLOROCERYLE AMERICANA SEPTENTRIONALIS (Sharpe)

TEXAS KINGFISHER

Plate 16

HABITS

I made the acquaintance of this pretty little kingfisher when I made a short visit to Cameron County, Tex., as the guest of George Finlay Simmons, in May 1923. This is a most interesting bird country, rich in the number of Mexican species that reach their northern limits here and the only region in which some of them can be found within the limits of the United States. About Brownsville the chaparral, the open prairies, the tree claims, the ponds, and the swamps were all teeming with bird life of many species; but perhaps the most interesting of all were the dense forests along the resacas or stagnant watercourses, the old beds of rivers; these often contained large trees, mesquite, huisache, ebony, palms, etc., with a thick undergrowth of many shrubs and small trees, such as granjena, persimmons, coffee bean, and bush morning-glory. Here we found the characteristic birds of the region in abundance, such as the chachalaca, the red-billed pigeon, the noisy derby flycatcher, the brilliant green jay, and Audubon’s oriole. Here, too, I was delighted to see my first Texas kingfisher, as it sat on a dead fallen tree over the water and then went flying away upstream, uttering its rattling twitter, suggestive of but different from that of the belted kingfisher.

Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it is “resident along clearer mountain streams of southwest-central Texas, from Comal County southward. * * * Occurrence depends largely on its habitat, the bird requiring the clearest of waters, particularly the crystal-clear rivers and brooks of the central Texas hill area; dislikes water the least bit muddy; larger, clearer streams and rarely smaller ones,” as well as “shady little brooks,” are mentioned as its favorite haunts.

Dickey and van Rossem (1938) record this kingfisher as a “common resident throughout the arid Lower Tropical Zone on all freshwater lakes, streams, and marshes below 2,300 feet, and also coast-wise in the mangrove belt,” in El Salvador. Of its haunts they say: “A favorite environment is along small, rocky streams of the uplands, and in such places the population averages about a pair to the mile. When the young of the year are on the wing, this average is considerably increased for a time. Probably the section of stream inhabited by any individual pair has pretty definite limits, for although individual birds or pairs show no hesitancy in keeping well ahead of a person for a time, sooner or later they will make every effort to break back along the route to the places from where they were first started. Salt water is apparently not greatly to their liking, and in the mangrove lagoons they were decidedly uncommon. Scarcity of suitable nesting sites may, however, be in part responsible for this condition.”

Alexander F. Skutch found this kingfisher on small streams as high as 7,000 feet above sea level in the highlands of Guatemala, and writes (MS.) of its haunts: “While toiling over the rocky bed of some narrow torrent rushing down a mountain valley, where the huge trees arch overhead and shut out the sky, I have often heard a pleasant _cheep_ and turned to watch the solitary figure of a green kingfisher fly swiftly past, low above the water and following all the twistings of the channel, until lost in the depth of the forest. While his larger relatives require deeper water and a longer drop, he is often content to plunge from the top of a boulder projecting a foot or so above a shallow channel, and fishes on the smaller streams from which they are absent; but he joins them on the broader and more sluggish waterways. He rarely hovers above the water in the manner of the larger kingfishers.”

_Nesting._--The first account of the nesting of the Texas kingfisher is by William Brewster (1879), who writes: “This beautiful little Kingfisher was found by Mr. Werner in comparative abundance at several points in Comal County, notably about some of the springs that empty into the Guadaloupe River. A set of six eggs, taken April 25, 1878, was authenticated by the capture of both parent birds, the female being caught on the nest. * * * The nesting cavity was in a sandy bank near the water’s edge. The eggs were laid on the bare sand, no fish bones or other extraneous material being near. The entrance was not quite 1¾ inches in diameter, and the hole extended inward from the face of the bank about 3½ feet.”

Bendire (1895) says:

The nests of many of these little Kingfishers are yearly
destroyed by high water flooding their burrows, caused
by heavy rains and cloud-bursts, which are more or less
prevalent in southern and western Texas. It is not uncommon
on both the Medina and San Antonio rivers, and a nesting
site on the last-mentioned stream found by Mr. C. H.
Kearny, in the spring of 1892, containing six fresh eggs,
is described by him as being located in a bank about 15
feet high and about 5 feet above the water level. The
nesting chamber, which was slightly larger than the tunnel
leading to it, was placed about 2 feet from the mouth of
the hole. There was no nest proper, but a few fish bones
and scales were scattered about the eggs. In the same bank
a number of Bank Swallows (_Clivicola riparia_) had taken
up temporary homes, and one of their holes was located
within a foot of that of the Kingfishers. They are devoted
parents, and these birds will usually allow themselves to
be caught rather than forsake their eggs.

There are four sets of eggs of this kingfisher in the Thayer collection and one in the writer’s collection, all taken by, or for, Frank B. Armstrong, near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, between March 12 and 28, 1908. The nests were all in holes in banks, about 3 feet deep and 6 to 8 feet above the water.

Mr. Skutch says (MS.) that this kingfisher, which he calls the green kingfisher, is one of the five species of birds that nest most commonly in the banks of the streams in the Caribbean lowlands of Central America. “The burrows of the ringed kingfisher are distinguished at once by the large diameter of the tunnel, 6 inches in width. Next in size are those of the Amazon kingfisher, 3¾ inches wide. Then come those of the turquoise-browed motmot, about 3½ inches in width; and finally those of the green kingfisher, only 2 or 2¼ inches in horizontal diameter.

“While the burrows of the larger kingfishers and the motmot are placed in plain sight in the bare and exposed banks, so that he who runs may see them, those of the green kingfisher I have found concealed by the fringe of vines and dead vegetation draping the top of the bank, or else behind exposed roots, and I discovered them only by seeing a bird enter or leave. Theirs were the last of the three kingfishers’ nests I encountered, and I found only two, late in the season, although the species is equally abundant with the Amazon kingfisher. As befits the smaller bird, their burrows are far shorter than those of the larger species. The two I measured were only 22 and 25 inches in length.

“One morning at the end of April, I sat down to eat my breakfast upon a fallen log beside the Quebrada de Arena, a little brook so narrow that one can easily jump across it, flowing through a pasture grown up with low bushes and thorny vine tangles. Presently a male green kingfisher flew downstream, perched on a branch ahead of me, _ticked_ a great deal and seemed excited about my presence. The bird’s persistence in remaining in that stretch of the river and his evident excitement renewed my conviction [on a previous visit] that his burrow was not far distant. I removed my shoes and waded up and down, examining every likely bit of bank, while the bird flew back and forth to keep out of my way. I discovered only old burrows whose lack of fresh foot-furrows proclaimed clearly enough they were not in use. Quite baffled, I paused beneath the shelter of some overhanging bushes to watch the bird, and in a few minutes, after calling again _tick tick tick_, he flew up beneath the exposed roots of a dead stump, half washed out, and disappeared. This was almost the exact spot whence I had seen him or his mate emerge three weeks before, but the entrance to the burrow was so well concealed by the overhang of the top of the bank, the projecting roots and the vines which draped over them, that it had completely escaped me.

“I lost no time in opening the burrow. The male flew out with the second push I gave the machete which I used to dig, for the tunnel sloped upward so sharply that the nesting chamber was less than three inches below the surface of the ground, and I broke through into the rear of it before I supposed I had well started to dig. There were three white eggs, well advanced in incubation, to judge from their opacity. The male fluttered several times in front of the burrow, eager to enter before it had been closed again. I fitted a stone over the small aperture I had made, covered it with earth, and placed logs across the roof of the nesting chamber, to prevent the mules’ stepping upon it and possibly breaking through. The birds continued to incubate.

“The pair arranged their turns on the eggs in much the same manner as the Amazon kingfishers. The female spent each night on the nest. Soon after 6 a. m. the male flew downstream, low above the water, uttering at intervals the high-pitched _cheep_, which is his flight call. He perched on one of the roots of the old stump projecting in front of the nest and called _tick tick tick_ in a low voice, which his mate heard in the burrow. She came forth, greeting him with a single _cheep_, as she flew swiftly past and turned down the brook to her feeding grounds. Her behavior was rather erratic.

“One morning she could not await his arrival, although he was hardly late. She popped out of the nest without warning and flew off, but a minute later the pair returned together. The male went to the root in front of the burrow, _ticked_ just as much as he was accustomed to do to call off his mate, although he could certainly see she was not inside, then entered the empty burrow. The following morning she acted in quite another manner. Just after 6, on a cloudy morning after a night of hard rain, the male flew downstream, perched in front of the burrow, and _ticked_ for her to come forth, but she paid no heed to his repeated calls. He flew a few rods downstream, then returned to call _tick tick tick_ again. Still no response, so he flew away out of sight. Ten minutes later he reappeared and perched again on the root in front of the burrow, where he called at intervals for two minutes before at length she darted forth. Then he entered for the morning. The male incubated until the female returned from her breakfast to relieve him. One morning she left him on the nest less than two hours, but the next it was nearly three. She covered the eggs for the remainder of the morning. The male was chiefly responsible for keeping them warm during the afternoon, until his mate called him from the nest and entered for the night at some time between 5 and 6 o’clock.”

_Eggs._--The Texas kingfisher lays three to six eggs, but five seems to be the commonest number. These vary in shape from oval to elliptical-oval; the shell is smooth and thin; some show little or no gloss and others are quite glossy; the color is pure white. The measurements of 64 eggs average 24.36 by 19.23 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extreme measures =26.4= by 20.3, 24.1 by =20.7=, =22.3= by 19.3, and 23.8 by =17.5= millimeters.

_Young._--The second nest that Mr. Skutch found contained five “pink-skinned, blind, and totally naked nestlings,” which “like those of the larger species, had undershot bills and heel callosities.” He visited this nest 18 days later and found that the young, which were not more than 25 days old, “could flutter just a few feet. One flew into the river, where she spread her wings on the surface and headed for the shore. I threw her into the shallow water again, and again she turned unerringly toward the marginal rocks, beating her wings on the surface until she gained a footing. The following morning I placed them on the shore for a photograph, but two found their wings and easily traversed the 50-foot channel, flying low above the surface. The power of flight had come to them almost overnight.

“One evening early in June, after the sun had fallen behind the bordering fringe of willow trees, I was resting on a log stranded on the flood plain of the river, when a young green kingfisher flew upstream, calling _cheep_ at intervals, and perched on a pile of brushwood almost in front of the burrow in which it was hatched. Presently its father came flying downstream, with a small minnow in his bill, and perched on the same pile of brushwood, not far from the other. The young bird came toward him, as if to receive the fish, but the other raised his wings above his back to forfend it. The youngster took this as a hint to remain aloof and perched at a little distance. Not satisfied with the interval that remained between them, the male darted at the young bird, which retreated a few feet. Several times it started to approach its father, but each time was warned to remain away by the spread wings, a very picturesque attitude. Several times, too, the bird with the fish drove at the applicant for it and finally, still holding the fish in his bill, chased it down the stream and out of sight. The young kingfisher had been out of the nest 29 days and must now at least learn to dive for its own fish.”

_Plumages._--The young kingfishers are hatched naked and blind, as described above, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. A young male, taken on August 21, fully grown and fully fledged in juvenal plumage, is much like the adult female; the rich brown pectoral band of the adult male is only faintly indicated but is replaced by a band of greenish-black spots; and there is more black spotting on the flanks than in the adult male. Apparently there is a gradual change toward maturity during the first year, for October, February, and April birds show a gradual increase in the rufous band.

The youngest female I have seen, taken on June 8, is much like the adult female, but the pectoral band of greenish black spots is lacking, or nearly so, the under parts being nearly immaculate. These spots, which are more in the form of broad streaks than in transverse spots, increase with age to form one complete and one nearly complete band in the oldest birds. The observations made by Mr. Skutch on the brood of young that he studied agree substantially with the above.

I have no data on the molts, but Mr. van Rossem (1938) says that “the annual molt * * * takes place in the fall, but the definite time is not known.”

_Food._--The food mentioned by Mr. Skutch (MS.) consisted of small minnows. Mr. Simmons (1925) says that this kingfisher is a “business-like little fisherman, perching atop a stick or stake in the water or on a low branch overhanging low water”; it “frequently flies back and forth over the water, hunting for small fish.” It is “often driven off feeding-grounds by the larger Belted Kingfisher, with which it is sometimes found.”

_Voice._--Mr. Simmons (1925) says that the voice of the Texas kingfisher is a “rather sharp, rattling twitter, uttered on the wing; quite different from and shriller than the loud, harsh rattle of the Belted Kingfisher.” Mr. Skutch refers to the flight note as _cheep_, and the call or alarm note as _tick tick tick_.

_Field marks._--This is such a small kingfisher that it could hardly be mistaken for anything else within its range. Its upper parts are dark, glossy green, and spotted with white, and it has no occipital crest. The under parts are white, with a rufous pectoral band on the male and a ring of black spots across the breast of the female.

_Enemies._--The first set of eggs that Mr. Skutch found failed to hatch, as they were destroyed by ants. He writes (MS.): “Opening the burrow, I found it swarming with myriads of small, amber ‘fire ants,’ a scourge to man and beast alike. Invading the nest, they had worried the birds until they fidgeted on their eggs and cracked them; then they had worked into the cracks and begun to eat the embryos. I had cleaned them out the previous evening, but all to no avail. The nest was completely ruined. That same morning they had attacked and killed three young woodpeckers in their nest in a dead stub standing a few paces from the kingfishers’ burrow. In the humid coastal regions, ants are one of the principal enemies, if not actually the chief enemy, of nesting birds. I have found more eggs and nestlings destroyed by them than by all other known agents combined.”

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Southern Texas, Mexico, and Central and South America; casual in southern Arizona; apparently a nonmigratory species.

The range of the green kingfisher extends =north= to Sinaloa (Mazatlan); Durango (Rio Sestin); southern Texas (Turtle Creek and New Braunfels); Quintana Roo (Xcopan); eastern Nicaragua (Pis Pis River); northern Colombia (Santa Marta and Bonda); northern Venezuela (La Guaira); British Guiana (Potaro Landing and Bartica); Surinam (Paramaribo); and northern Brazil (Quixada). =East= to Brazil (Quixada, Rio Taquarussu, and Goyaz); and Uruguay (Santa Elena). =South= to southern Uruguay (Santa Elena); and central Argentina (Santa Elena, San Jose, and Tucuman). =West= to northwestern Argentina (Tucuman); Bolivia (San Jose); Peru (La Merced and the Ucayale River); Ecuador (Vinces); western Colombia (Tumaco, Cali, and Rio Frio); Panama (Sapo Mountains, Gatun, and the Chagres River); western Guatemala (Duenas, and Lake Atitlan); Oaxaca (Juchatengo); Nayarit (San Blas); and Sinaloa (Escuinapa, and Mazatlan).

The subspecies, known as _Chloroceryle americanus septentrionalis_, is the only form to enter the United States. It ranges southward from Texas to Yucatan.

_Casual records._--A specimen was taken at Decatur, Tex., north of the normal range in this State, on January 3, 1889. Dr. Elliott Coues reported seeing this species in September 1865 at points on the Colorado River, Ariz., between Forts Mohave and Yuma, and one was taken on the San Pedro River near Fairbanks on February 13, 1910. One was collected on September 8, 1893, at Cajon Bonito Creek, Sonora, a few miles south of the New Mexico line. One was taken on the Santa Cruz River, Ariz., on October 1, 1938.

_Egg dates._--Mexico: 24 records, March 5 to June 13; 12 records, March 12 to April 19, indicating the height of the season.

Texas: 4 records, April 11 to June 15.

Order CAPRIMULGIFORMES

Family CAPRIMULGIDAE: Goatsuckers

ANTROSTOMUS CAROLINENSIS (Gmelin)

CHUCK-WILL’S-WIDOW

PLATES 18–20

HABITS

CONTRIBUTED BY ALEXANDER SPRUNT, JR.

Dusk falls gently over the salt marshes, which reach out from a shoreline where moss-bannered live oaks and stately pines rustle softly in the late March breeze. A faint fragrance of jessamine hangs in the air; the sleepy note of a cardinal echoes from a cassina thicket, while atop a tall palmetto a mockingbird salutes the coming night with a burst of melody. Silence comes and the stars appear, glinting in golden splendor through the purple gloom.

Suddenly through the air comes another sound, a sharp, clear-cut, insistent chant. Splitting the silences, it strikes clappingly upon one’s ears, ringing with startling emphasis, unmistakable, thrilling and welcome. The first chuck-will’s-widow has returned to the Carolina low country, and spring is definitely back again!

There is something about nocturnal birds that fascinate one strangely. Doubtless the cloak of darkness that shrouds their movements and activities has a great deal to do with it. One cannot but wonder at their comings and goings; how they pursue their hunting amid the gloom. Their voices too lend much to the fascination, for the notes seem a part of the night itself, just as the bodies of the birds themselves seem more like detached and living particles of darkness than of flesh and feathers.

All my life I have lived amid the haunts of some of these furtive kindred of the dusk, but the chuck-will’s-widow above all seems to typify the mystery of the night and invests it with a sense of intangible yet satisfying tranquillity. It has always seemed to me that those beautiful lines, written of the cuckoo, might be even more applicable to the chuck-will’s-widow, for, in truth, much of the time it does not seem a bird at all, but simply “a wandering voice.” Without brilliant plumage or grace of form, it nevertheless possesses undoubted character, and long acquaintance with the bird only increases the interest that is bound to be aroused in any study of its life and habits.

_Spring._--Generally speaking, the chuck-will’s-widow arrives in the South in March. There is some indication that a few birds spend the winter in southern Florida for C. J. Pennock (MS.) has stated that “in the Charlotte Harbor district a few at least appear to winter. February 26, 1926, one heard calling; February 24, 1927, while camping, we heard one.” Arthur H. Howell (1932) states that it “winters in small numbers” and gives December and February dates. R. J. Longstreet’s opinion (1930) is that “the chuck-will’s-widow is a summer resident in north Florida and a permanent resident in south Florida.” Audubon considered the species a permanent resident in the State, and his idea was, according to Allen (1871), confirmed by “old residents,” though he himself states it “is not observed till about the first of March.” I am obliged to spend portions of every winter month in Florida, being constantly in the field throughout the southern Everglades and the Keys, but it so happens that I have yet to find the chuck-will’s-widow during this season. The wintering population is undoubtedly small and scattered.

It reaches north-central Florida about March 18 (D. J. Nicholson, MS.) and appears in the coastal districts of southern Georgia a few days later (T. D. Perry, MS.). In South Carolina, about Charleston, it arrives anywhere from the third week in March to the first week of April. The males always arrive first, followed in a few days by the females.

_Courtship._--Little time is lost by the chuck-will’s-widow, after its arrival from its winter home, in seeking a mate. Almost at once it undertakes the search, and it is at such times that the observer has an opportunity to see them actively in daylight. The courtship performance is an interesting one and, all things considered, is not difficult to observe. The outstanding characteristic is the strutting pomposity of the male. He sidles up to the watching female, his wings droop, the tail is widely spread, and he swells and swells until it really seems that the limit of inflation is reached and another fraction of distention would cause him to disintegrate like a bursting bomb. Various vocal efforts are indulged in meanwhile, accompanied by quick, jerky motions. Audubon (1840) has compared this phase of the proceedings to that of the domestic cock pigeon, while Arthur T. Wayne (1910) likened it to a turkey gobbler’s antics. This latter has always seemed to me most apt, for not only does the seemingly endless inflation remind one vividly of the turkey, but the motions also suggest this bird.

After this period of intense and apparently exhausting display, a space of calm and quiet pervades the pair should the male have been successful in his suit, and he perches placidly beside her.

_Nesting._--No semblance of a nest is constructed. The eggs are placed on the ground upon a carpet of dead leaves, and the sitting bird constitutes one of the finest examples of protective coloration that nature affords. Such dependence is placed in it that the closest approach is possible, and the bird flushes only when nearly trodden on. The mottling of the plumage is exactly like that of the variegated background of leaves, sun splashes, and shadow, and one may look directly at the bird without seeing it. Once the bird is flushed, however, it is perfectly easy to see the eggs, for they then stand out like huge pearls against the leaves, not having the similarity to the ground that characterizes the eggs of the nighthawk.

Mixed oak and pine woods are usually the nesting haunt of the chuck. In the large live-oak groves, which occur over so much of the plantation country of the South, the species is abundant and shows a remarkable tendency to place the eggs in nearly the same spot year after year. As a rule there is little if any undergrowth about the eggs. When under the pines, this would not be expected, and in the oak groves the ground is always covered by a veritable carpet of leaves, through which no undergrowth appears. Thus the eggs can be seen from a considerable distance should the bird be off them.

On May 8, 1926, I found two eggs on Folly Island, S. C., lying upon pine needles. Marking the spot accurately I returned the next year and on May 12, 1927, found two eggs within 5 feet of the spot used previously.