Pied Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

                    Introduction of Pied Kingfisher

      The Pied Kingfisher ( Scientific Name :Ceryle rudis) belongs to the family Alcedinidae and the Subfamily is Cerylinae . It is the only member belonging to the Genus Ceryle.
      This species was at first accepted comming from a familial American green kingfisher which crossed the Atlantic Ocean around 1 million years ego. Now it is almost certain that the Pied Kingfisher and the American green kingfishers are gotten from an Old World species, with the Pied Kingfisher or its predecessor losing the metallic tinge thereafter.

                 How to Identify Pied Kingfisher

        Pied Kingfisher is a medium-sized kingfisher and has the particular kingfisher type body , with a big head, little body, little feet, and long, knife like bill. They have unmistakable distinctive black and white coloration, spotted on the wings, and with a black crown on the head.
        Male and female Pied Kingfisher are almost of same size. The normal male is 82.4 g with a bill length of 48.8 mm, wingspan is 45-47 cm and the normal female is 86.4 g with a bill length of 48.4 mm. Weight ranges from 70 to 100 g. Genders can be recognized by explicitly dimorphic bands over the chest. Male typically have two black bands and females have just one.
         Young pied kingfishers are like grown-up females, but It has some blackish "scales" on the white areas and on head, neck and throat. In flight, the fanned tail is rather long, white, with black median tail feathers and tips.  The bill is shorter.
     Pied Kingfisher has four  recognized subspecies as bellow .
       C. r. rudis (Linnaeus, 1758) –  Turkey and Israel to Syria, Iraq and SW Iran, also N Egypt and Nile Valley, and sub-Saharan Africa (except arid regions).
      C. r. leucomelanurus Reichenbach, 1851 – NE Afghanistan, W Pakistan and India (except SW) S to Sri Lanka, and E to Thailand and Indochina.
      C. r. travancoreensis Whistler, 1935 – SW India (from N Kerala S to Cape Comorin).
      C. r. insignis E. J. O. Hartert, 1910 – Found in Hong Kong, Hainan, and China. It is like C. r. leucoelanura however the bill is around 5 mm longer by and large.
           Pied kingfishers might be confused with crested kingfishers (Megaceryle lugubris), which is also known as greater pied kingfishers. But Creasted kingfishers have a pink brown lining on the wings where as Pied Kingfisher have a white lining. They are also larger than pied kingfishers.

                Habits and Habitats

        Pied kingfishers are gregarious. Pied Kingfisher hovers when searching for prey above water.and they are the largest birds able to hover for a sustained period of time.
       Characteristic practices incorporate the presentation of a customary bouncing of the head or tail while watching a prey. And then by diving into the water making shower of water, and appearing again with its stabbed prey in the bill. It also may hover before to dive, just time to locate prey.
When back on its perch, it strikes the prey against the support in order to stun it. They bathe by more than once plunging into water, fly without undulation. Their call are noisy and occasionally heard while in flight or when they mark territory during nesting. Call of Pied Kingfisher is typical. It is loud, penetrating and repeated "kwik" or "kik", and a high-pitched “TREEtiti TREEtiti ". Pied Kingfisher lives in pairs and they are not migratory bird.
        Pied kingfishers live along streams, lakes, waterways, estuaries, water system trench, coastal lagoons, channels, coves, floodlands, and reedy bays.  on rocky and sandy coasts, close to fresh or brackish water tanks. It needs perches close to water, as trees, fences, posts and others.Close sloping regions, they live in lower waterway valleys. They as a rule maintain a strategic distance from mangroves and huge bogs. The living space of C. rudis ranges from seashores up to 2,500 m above ocean level. They are less rich close quick streaming waters.
       One examination demonstrates that there is a distinct difference of habitats of male and females. Females are more common in rocky shores and are less common in shoreline which principally comes about because of reproducing designs. Along rough shorelines, nests are built nearer to the shore. Since females invest more energy brooding eggs than male, they have more access to the shore if nests destinations are nearer to the shoreline.

             Food

       Pied Kingfisher feeds mainly on fish, aquatic insects, crabs and crayfish, frogs and molluscs.

Pied kingfisher hovering for prey

             Nesting and Breeding

        Courtship of  Ceryle rudis involves dancing displays and males offering food to females.They loudly call to one another while holding their wings half spread and may likewise take part in battles by interlocking their snouts or holding their wings. Males tries to attract females by offering food over a time of around three weeks. Pied kingfishers breed cooperatively and  non-mated bird help raising the chicks of a mated pair. Agreeable rearing starts before eggs are hatched and more males help the reproducing pair subsequent to incubating.
         Pied Kingfishers are monogamous, and both genders help to dig nest holes in soft earth. Pied kingfishers  use their beaks to dig hole into the ground and their feet to drive earth out of the nest. Pied Kingfisher’s nest is dug in an earthy bank, above water, occasionally in a flat and grassy ground. Pair digs the burrow which sizes about one metre in depth. Homes can be assembled alone or provincially with up to 100  birds building homes in a similar zone. They are worked along rivulets and streams and take 23 to 26 days to finish. Eggs are laid at interims of one day and start three days after completion of nest. Females lays 4-5 eggs. Eggs are glossy, white and round. Hatching takes eighteen days. So as to secure the eggs, about 80% of home openings are in reality false begins that don't lead to the the egg chamber. Hatchlings are fed by parents for as long as two months subsequent to fledging, however will start plunging for sustenance two weeks in the wake of fledging. Young kingfishers will develop their flight feathers somewhere in the range of eleven and thirteen days after they are hatched.
       Males and females, along with other males, will share the obligations of raising nestlings and hatching eggs. In any case, females are the main hatcher amid the day and for the most part brood around evening time. Nestlings will be sustained for 23 to 26 days. There are two types of breeder-helper par nest of Pied Kingfisher: primary and secondary Primary helpers are mainly  sons of breeding male . These helpers help for feeding the nestlings. Secondary helpers are not related with breeding male  and show up a couple of days after the nestlings bring forth. They are at first warded away, but allowed eventually and they mainly  feed the female.
        Throughout fertilization, hatching, fledging, and weaning, males and females protect  the nest from predators with vocalizations and threat behaviors.
        Hatchlings are visually impaired, pink, and powerless. Their eyes open by the ninth day and they start to develop feathers by the fourth day. Flight feathers start to develop between the eleventh and thirteenth days, and completely create a month and a half in the wake of leaving the nest. Nestlings will leave the nest on the 25th day, and are nourished by the parents for 1 to 2 months. They start plunging inside about fourteen days of leaving the home. In thinking about their young, pied kingfishers will frequently feed their nestlings entire fish. They disgorge one pellet of undigested bones every day. They reach their sexual maturity at one year.
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