Day: March 12, 2025

It takes a little over three weeks for the eggs to hatch and another 24-27 days for the little birds to grow ready to leave the nest for the first-and-last time. When they do emerge, they are mini versions of the adults. And quickly pick up skills to feed themselves.

Despite the name King-Fisher, the Sacred variety seem to do very little, if any fishing. Over the 6 weeks or so of hatching and pre-flight, I only spotted a couple of tiny local river fish being brought in, and several other aquatic creatures such as frogs.

By the time the young were ready to be fed, the male had become so absorbed in his delivery job that he was by then, completly indifferent to our presence, and would do close flybys and land on nearby convenient branches. A few times he realised that as I was moving my foot around where I was standing that it had startled something to eat. The scary sight of a Kingfisher flying directly toward me caught me unprepared. He’d land within touching distance, pick up a treat, and then be on his way.

At first he would turn up about every 30 minutes or so with a snack for the sitting female, and on occassion she’d also take the opportunty to come out for a stretch and the male would take up sitting duties. After a time she’d return, sit close by and call, and it I was quick enough I might catch him on the exit from the hole. She, on the other hand didn’t give any warning of leaving and it was only luck if I even saw her emerge.

It’s imposible to tell when they started to hatch, and for some days he’d deliver food and she would have fed it to the young. After about a week or so, by my reckoning, she too was out full time and making regular feeding trips.
The time began became about one visit every 10 minutes. We began to wonder how many young were in there, and if they would not grow so fat that they couldn’t fly out, so much food was going in.

The eyesight of the bird was something I’ve never really thought about before, but it’s phenomenal. From a perch closeby, he could fly direct 80-120m to a tree, bush or to the ground and come back with something. The miss rate was very low indeed.

We still gave them as much distance as possible and didn’t move around in the area any more than necessary. He even become so relaxed that while we were enjoying a morning cuppa about 100m from the site, he would come and sit on a favourite branch over some ground cover and usually picked up something very close to the log we were sitting on. Once he hunted under the log near our feet.

Here’s a selection of menu items, and I’ve had to be very selective as there are dozens more. With all that food going in we were now wondering, what was likely to emerge, and when.

Enjoy

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