Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher

Abstract

Imagine a robin-sized bird hovering in midair a dozen feet from a tall, sandy cutbank, and then flying full-tilt, striking the bank beak-first at 16 miles per hour. Colleagues of Halcyon Journey’s author Marina Richie recorded a mated pair of belted kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon) performing just this task 176 times over a period of 180 minutes to excavate a new nesting burrow. After each strike, the dazed birds perched on a branch to regain composure or bathed in the creek below. Richie and her colleagues were the first to document this behavior in belted kingfishers, though three kingfisher species in other parts of the world use the same strategy to excavate nesting burrows, and 10 other species ram termite mounds to expose the insects inside. Richie is a freelance science and natural history writer who became captivated by belted kingfishers when she noticed the birds flying along a stream while attending one of her son’s soccer matches. As a result, she decided to study a pair of the birds frequenting Rattlesnake Creek, a tributary of the Clark Fork River near her home in Missoula, Montana. In the end, she observed Rattlesnake Creek kingfishers for seven years from 2008 through 2015 and gathered together her observations for this book. Woven among the observations are a narrative of significant personal events in the author’s life, Greek and Native American kingfisher mythology and origin stories, and a wealth of ornithological, biogeographic, and phylogenetic information on the 120 kingfisher species worldwide. “Halcyon” is both a noun and an adjective. The word has Greek roots in the words hals (sea) and kuo (conceive). According to Greek mythology, two lovers, Halcyon and Ceyx, were transformed into kingfishers that annually nested at sea for two weeks centered on the winter solstice. During the nesting period, the sea calmed to accommodate the nesting lovers. Hence, as a noun, “halcyon” refers to a kingfisher in general. However, as an adjective, “halcyon” connotes calm, peace, and prosperity, in reference to the period during which the roiling seas were stilled to allow the lovers to nest. In many ways, the title’s double meaning also applies to the author’s life during the period she watched the birds. Ultimately, Halcyon Journey is as much a celebration of citizen science as it is a paean to the natural world. For as many early spring mornings that Richie shivered in the rain hidden behind a massive Douglas fir or squatted motionless for hours in a portable hunter’s blind observing the skittish birds, she basked on sunny afternoons amid a chorus of migratory songbirds returning to the Rattlesnake Creek riparian forest to breed. She developed professional relationships with ornithologists whose guidance and mentoring deepened her understanding and appreciation of these common but poorly known birds. At the same time, her commitment and determination led to experiences in the natural world she never would have had if she had not been so determined to see this project through. Richie aptly quotes research biologist and naturalist Bernd Heinrich: “But the lure of seeing something new or unexpected is powerful, and this usually requires being at the wrong place at the right time or vice versa, mucking around in one’s muchloved places and situations” (Heinrich, B. 2020. White Feathers: The Nesting Life of Tree Swallows. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). In addition to documenting that belted kingfishers at least occasionally excavate nesting burrows via aerial ramming, Richie also observed a heretofore unknown courtship ritual in which mated kingfishers each selected a pebble and displayed the stones