Stork-billed Kingfisher foraging on a rotting branch

Posted by BESG on 31 October 08, Friday
Contributed by Jay Tan

On 1st October 2008, Jay Tan a.k.a. jay documented a series of images of a Stork-billed Kingfisher (Halcyon capensis) picking off pieces of rotting wood off its perch at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

“Was at SBWR yesterday and saw this storky picking off tree bark from the branch it was perching on. It went on to whack the bark around and did something like munching on it… It did not swallow the entire bark though and finally dropped it. What is it actually trying to do? Anybody can shed some light?”

Stork-billed Kingfisher feeds mainly on fish, crabs and other crustaceans. It also takes frogs, lizards, rodents, young birds and insects like beetles as well as insect larvae. Its perch in the images above is a rotting branch. It is possible that the bird was pecking off pieces to expose insect larvae…

Image by Jay Tan.

This post is a cooperative effort between www.naturepixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.

Related Posts:

Stork-billed Kingfisher catching another fish This is another documentation of the Stork-billed Kingfisher (Halcyon... Tale of the Stork-billed Kingfisher Seeing a kingfisher fishes for its meal in swift, precision... Stork-billed Kingfisher catching armoured catfish For about two weeks recently, Kennie Pan was at... Life around a rotting tree trunk 2: Collared Kingfisher A pair of Collared Kingfishers (Todiramphus chloris) was nesting in... Feeding habits of kingfishers A kingfishers generally hunts by sitting quietly on a high... Common Kingfisher: Hovering On the morning of 21st November 2006, KC Tsang... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Email Post

Categories: Feeding strategy, Kingfishers

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Anti-spam word: (Required)*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.