Species Spotlight: Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher
Species spotlight:
What is that darting through the air of the thick Asian forest, a flash of fire? A sparkly light beam? Or our queen, the Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher?
Names & Nicknames: Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher, three-toed kingfisher, oriental dwarf kingfisher
Size: They do be dainty. Black-backed Dwarf Kingfishers aren't just one of the most colourful kingfishers, but one of the smallest as well. At around 13cm beak to tail and up to 21g in weight (and that's for the largest males), they weigh less than an AA battery.
Communication: These little superstars communicate mainly through a series of high-pitched calls. They often will call whilst in flight and it will sound like ‘tsriet-tsriet’ or ‘tjie-tjie-tjie’ to you and me, but to another kingfisher it may be a romance call, a hello, or a 'stay out of my territory!'
Favourite Hangout: They like to hang out in lowland forests, particularly around pools, creeks and streams where there are plenty of tasty critters to munch on and good perches to hunt from.
Favourite Snack: Whilst fisher is certainly in their name and they do like an aquatic snack, they also love to feed on a variety of insects, spiders, worms, snails, crabs, and even small reptiles and amphibians.
Eating Habits: Black-backed Dwarf Kingfishers are masters of the ‘perch-and-pounce’ method. They will perch up on a rock or bit of low vegetation, and when they see a tasty morsel, they will strike. This includes plucking spiders from their webs, catching insects in flight, and even spearing prey from just below the surface of a body of water. If their prey is too big to eat straight away, they will take it back to its perch, where a few rapid strikes of its beak are usually enough to finish it off before swallowing.
Toilet Humour: A lot of birds might regurgitate up undigested food, think of your mate after a heavy night out and a kebab; a Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher is just the same but it leaves its leftovers in neat little pellets full of little mementoes of their previous meals such as fish scales and bits of insect.
Love Language: Kingfisher or lovebird? Courtship begins when the male finds a female and offers her food, which he presents directly to her. If the female is receptive, she will accept the offering, and the male will continue to bring her meals until she is satisfied. Once the wining and dining is done, the couple will build a nest together, and then it’s time to get down and dirty. After the deed is complete, the male might celebrate with a celebratory display flight to further woo the female - what a charmer!
If you see them: If you see a flash of fire and colour shooting through the forests of Asia, perhaps you have had a very lucky sighting of a Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher! These little (emphasis on little) birds can be quite elusive and shy, are often only found in thick vegetation, and are very fast-moving.
Red Flags: Although threatened by climate change, water pollution, illegal hunting (some fishermen view them as competition for fish), and collisions with windows, the main threat to these forest gems is habitat destruction. They rely on healthy forest streams and thick vegetation to perch on, so when these are lost, so too are the kingfishers.
Epic Journeys: Several populations of black-backed dwarf kingfishers are perfectly happy in their forest homes all year round, such as those in Southern India and Sri Lanka. However, some groups, such as those that live more northernly in places like Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and China, may migrate southwards for warmer weather and more stable food sources. They are thought to mainly fly at night when it's cooler.
Glow-up: A female Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher will lay 4-5 eggs in a nest, and both she and the father will take turns incubating the eggs and looking after them. After they have hatched, their feathers will develop within the first week, and their eyes will open up after a fortnight. Within the first few weeks, they will also slowly develop their unique colouration, and after just 3 weeks, they will be ready to leave the nest and strike out on their own.
Facts: Black-backed Dwarf Kingfishers are expert hunters – they are even capable of spearing unsuspecting fish and aquatic prey from underneath the surface. They have a special adaptation - their eyes contain two foveae, a structure densely packed with light-collecting photoreceptors. They allow them to switch between monocular vision (for aerial hunting) and binocular vision, which helps them better judge distances underwater. A kingfisher's foveae have a much greater angle of separation compared to other birds of prey, such as eagles and hawks. This means the binocular vision is focused along their beak, a bit like a laser sight on a gun. BANG.
Who are they in the friendship group: Featherweight. Fast. Fabulous.
Name:
Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher
Habitat:
Typically found in lowland forests, particularly near streams and ponds in several countries in South and Southeast Asia.
Diet:
Mainly insects such as mantises, grasshoppers and flies, invertebrates such as crabs, spiders, and worms, and small vertebrates such as fish, frogs, and lizards.
Size:
12.5-14cm in length and weighing around 14-16g for females and 14-21.5g for males
Behaviour:
Active in the morning and evening, and they may migrate largely at night. They are solitary
Predators:
Larger birds of prey and some predatory mammals
Lifespan:
4 Years
Threats:
They are mostly threatened by deforestation, but also collisions with windows, water pollution, illegal hunting, and climate change.
Conservation status:
Near Threatened
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