Kingfishers are generally shy birds, but in spite of this, they feature heavily in human culture, generally due to the large head supporting its powerful mouth, their bright plumage, or some species' interesting behavior.[19]
For the Dusun
people of Borneo,
the Oriental
dwarf kingfisher is considered a bad omen, and warriors who see
one on the way to battle should return home. Another Bornean tribe
considers the banded
kingfisher an omen bird, albeit generally a good omen.[10]
The
sacred
kingfisher, along with other Pacific kingfishers, was venerated
by the Polynesians, who believed it had control over the seas and
waves.
The common kingfisher was first
described by Carl
Linnaeus in the 10th
edition of his Systema
Naturae in 1758 as Gracula atthis.[2][3][4]
The modern binomial name derives from the Latin
alcedo,
'kingfisher' (from Greek
ἀλκυών,
halcyon), and Atthis, a beautiful young woman of
Lesbos,
and favourite of Sappho.[5]
Greek mythology is rich in
wonderful stories that are often woven into everyday life. One such
story is that of Halcyone, the daughter of Aeolus, the god of the
wind.
Halcyone and her husband Ceyx were so happy in
their marriage that they imagined themselves to be gods. They
therefore did not call each other by their own names, but let
themselves be called Zeus and Hera, equal to the supreme god and his
wife. This incurred the wrath of Zeus, who caused Ceyx to perish at
sea during a storm. In sorrow, Halcyone also threw herself into the
sea, after which Zeus changed her into a kingfisher. From then on
Halcyone flies along the Greek coasts, always looking for her lost
lover, and is doomed to make her nest on the beach in the midst of
winter, where her eggs are swept away by the winter storms.
In
time, so the story goes, Zeus took pity on Halcyone. He ensured that
there would be no winter storms for seven days every winter. While
her father Aeolus keeps the winds and waves in check, the kingfisher
can hatch her eggs during these ‘Halcyone days’.
The common kingfisher has no song.
Modern
taxonomy also refers to the winds and sea in naming kingfishers after
a classical Greek myth. The first pair of the mythical-bird Halcyon
(kingfishers) were created from a marriage of Alcyone
and Ceyx.
As gods, they lived the sacrilege of referring to themselves as Zeus
and Hera. They died for this, but the other gods, in an act of
compassion, made them into birds, thus restoring them to their
original seaside habitat. In addition, special "halcyon
days" were granted. These are the seven days on either side
of the winter solstice when storms shall never again occur for them.
The Halcyon birds' "days" were for caring for the
winter-hatched clutch (or brood), but the phrase "Halcyon days"
also refers specifically to an idyllic time in the past, or in
general to a peaceful time.
Various kinds of kingfishers
and human cultural artifacts are named
after the couple, in reference to this metamorphosis myth:
The genus Ceyx (within the river kingfishers family) is named after him.
The kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae (tree kingfishers) is named after his wife, as is the genus Halcyon.
The belted kingfisher's specific name (Megaceryle alcyon) also references her name.
Not all the kingfishers are named in this way. The etymology of kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is obscure; the term comes from "king's fisher", but why that name was applied is not known.[20]
18 BIRD STUDY
Nesting
success
Nesting success was calculated using the method
described by Mayfield (1961),
which makes the best use of the
fragmentary information found on many nest
record cards.
Mayfield uses the term 'exposure', the number of nests lost
varying
with the number of nests in the sample, and with the
number of days that each
is under observation. The unit of
exposure used in this analysis is the 'nest-day'
(one nest under
observation for one day). During the incubation period 13 nests
were
lost in 820 nest-days' exposure. The failure rate is therefore 13/820
= 0.016
nests lost per nest-day. During the fledging period
seven nests were lost in 1,237
nest-days' exposure, giving a
failure rate of 0.006 nests lost per nest-day.
The probability
of survival of nests with a failure rate r for a period of days d
is
(1— r)g. During incubation (20 days) the probability of survival is
therefore
(1 —0.016) 20 0.724, and during the fledging period
(25 days) it is (1-0.006) 2 ° =
0.0860. The probability that
Kingfisher nests will survive both the incubation and
the
fledging periods is 0.724 x 0.860 = 0.623 or 62.3%.
Failures
recorded during the incubation period were mainly due to human
dis-
turbance, people either taking the eggs or enlarging the
tunnel (eight records). One
interesting record was of a Mole
Talpa europaea having passed through the nest-
ing chamber. A
further six cards recorded destruction of the tunnel. The
King-
fisher is probably more susceptible than any other species
to the improvement of
land drainage on lowland rivers. The
extended breeding season means that nests
are at risk in all but
five months of the year. The hazards to a nesting Kingfisher
include
damage to banks by heavy machinery carrying out drainage work, and
the
grading of banks which removes suitable nest sites
altogether. Apart from affect-
ing breeding in this way, the
elimination of trees and bushes from the river-side
may remove
necessary fishing perches from long stretches of the stream.
During
the fledging period three instances of nests being dug out by boys
or
animals were recorded. Two records are of interest: one
refers to dead young
below a nest entrance, and the other to a
territorial fight between rival males.
Clancey (1935) noted that
when Kingfishers are reasonably spaced during the
breeding
season little attention is paid to territorial rights, but when they
are in
close proximity to one another fighting is frequent. He
recorded three occurrences
of eggs being destroyed by rival
pairs, and one instance of young being left to die,
most
probably after the parents had been chased away in a territorial
dispute.
Kingfishers can be very aggressive towards each other,
and the young are not
tolerated in the territory for long after
leaving the nest.
MORTALITY
Kingfisher annual mortality was
estimated from recoveries of birds ringed up to
1970, using the
method described by Lack (1943). The longest-lived individual
was
ringed in July 1964 and was found dead four and a half years
later in January
1969.
Table IV shows that mortality is
high with three-quarters of the population
dying each year (note
that standard errors are large). Assuming the sex ratio to
be
equal, this means that 76 young must survive to breed for every 100
King-
fishers at the start of the year, in order to maintain
population stability. The
trapping of breeding adults originally
ringed as nestlings shows that Kingfishers
are able to breed
when one year old (Brown 1934). Kingfishers lay fairly large clutches
British population is not
isolated and there are two
recoveries of birds ringed in Britain
being recovered in France: one representing
a movement of 430 km
(267 miles), and the other 505 km (314 miles). There is
also one
in Belgium (Figure 4) involving a movement of 555 km (345 miles),
the
longest distance known to have been travelled by a British
Kingfisher. There is
one recovery indicating movement in an
opposite direction, from Brittany to
North Wales
A challenge for any diving bird is the change in refraction between air and water. The eyes of many birds have two foveae (the fovea is the area of the retina with the greatest density of light receptors),[21] and a kingfisher can switch from the main central fovea to the auxiliary fovea when it enters water; a retinal streak of high receptor density which connects the two foveae allows the image to swing temporally as the bird drops onto the prey.[22] The egg-shaped lens of the eye points towards the auxiliary fovea, enabling the bird to maintain visual acuity underwater.[21] Because of the positions of the foveae, the kingfisher has monocular vision in air, and binocular vision in water. The underwater vision is not as a sharp as in air, but the ability to judge the distance of moving prey is more important than the sharpness of the image.[22]
Each cone cell of a bird's retina contains an oil droplet that may contain carotenoid pigments. These droplets enhance color vision and reduce glare. Aquatic kingfishers have high numbers of red pigments in their oil droplets; the reason red droplets predominate is not understood, but the droplets may help with the glare or the dispersion of light from particulate matter in the water.[22]
Kingfisher
Whose is the face I will see?
Whose is the name that I will call
When I am called to meet thee?
In this life who did you love
Beneath the drifting ashes?
Beneath the sheeting banks of air
That barrenly bore our rations?
When I could speak it was too late
Didn't you hear me calling?
Didn't you see my heart leap like
A pup in the constant barley?
In this new life where did you crouch
When the sky had set to boiling?
Burnin' within; seen from without
And your gut was a serpent coiling
And for the sake of that pit o' snakes
For whom did you allay your shyness?
And spend all your mercy and madness and grace
In a day beneath the bending cypress?
It was not on principle
Show, pro-heart, that you have got gall
A miracle!
I can bear a lot but not that pall
I can bear a lot but not that pall
Kingfisher, sound the alarm
Say, "sweet little darlin', now, come to my arms
Tell me all about the love you left on the farm"
He was a kind, unhurried man
With a heavy lip and a steady hand
But he loved me just like a little child,
A little child loves a little lamb
Thrown to the ground by something down there
Bitten by the bad air while the clouds tick
Trying to read all the signs
Preparing for when the bombs hit
Hung from the underbelly of the earth
While the stars skid away below
Gormless and brakeless, gravel-loose
Falling silent as gavels in the snow
I lay back and spit in my chaw
Wrapped in the long arm of the law
Who has seen it all
I can bear a lot but not that pall
I can bear a lot but not that pall
Kingfisher, cast your fly
O lord, it happens without even tryin'
When I sling a low look from my shuttering eye
Blows rain upon the one you loved
And though you were only sparring
There's blood on the eye, unlace the glove
Say, honey, I am not sorry
Stand here and name the one you loved
Beneath the drifting ashes
And in naming, rise above time
As it, flashing, passes
We came by the boatload
And were immobilised
Worshiping volcanoes
Charting the loping skies
The tides of the earth left
Us bound and calcified and made as
Obstinate as obsidian
Unmoving, save our eyes
Just mooning and blinking
From faces marked with coal
Ash cooling and shrinking
Cracks loud as thunder rollin', I swear
I know you; you know me
Where have we met before, tell me true?
To whose authority
Do you consign your soul?
I had a dream you came to me
Sayin', you shall not do me harm anymore
And with your knife you evicted my life
From its little lighthouse on the seashore
And I saw that my blood had no bounds
Spreading in a circle like an atom bomb
Soaking and felling everything in it's path
And welling in my heart like a birdbath
It is too short, the day we are born
We commence with our dying
Trying to serve with the heart of a child
Kingfisher lie with the lion
Lyrics submitted by mutinyinheaven_x, edited by
23 Comments
My Interpretation
22/05/2010
My
theory is that it's a tragic love story that took place during World
War II. The religious references are not the focus of the song, I think.
It took me a long time to see it, but the context speaks of the bombing
of Pearl Harbor.
First, Kingfisher was a bomber in the air force, or perhaps a fighter pilot. The stanza that illustrates that best is:
"I can bear a lot but not that pall
Kingfisher, cast your fly
O lord, it happens without even tryin'
When I sling a low look from my shuttering eye"
Other
things like rations, "sounding the alarm" and "preparing for when the
bombs hit" keyed me in to war at first, and there's more evidence later
in the song that she's talking specifically about Pearl Harbor.
I
think Joanna does switch narrators several times during the song. She
sometimes sings as Kingfisher him/herself, but other parts are his/her
lover addressing or observing Kingfisher. The "quiet" part at the end is
more historic, and definitely speaks to me of the persecution of the
Japanese after Pearl Harbor:
"We came by the boatload
And were immobilised
Worshiping volcanoes
Charting the loping skies
The tides of the earth left
Us bound and calcified and made as
Obstinate as obsidian
Unmoving, save our eyes"
The stanza:
"I know you; you know me
Where have we met before, tell me true?
To whose authority
Do you consign your soul?"
Clinches
the relationship between Kingfisher and the other character; S/he was a
Japanese immigrant, and they were lovers before the war. S/he might
have even been an actual Japanese spy, but that's not stated very
clearly in the song. Now s/he is imprisoned on a military base (in
Hawaii?), where Kingfisher sees him/her again.
"To whose
authority / Do you consign your soul?" is a reference (almost a joke)
about the Japanese' devotion to their emperor versus Americans' to the
flag. What they did to the Japanese after Pearl Harbor was pretty
atrocious.... The "dream" where Kingfisher kills the lover as if by an
atom bomb (a basically undeniable Japan reference) is the final stroke.
All hope is lost for the him/her, and s/he expresses his/her regret in
the final stanza for the choices they each made.
They rest of the
song, while beautiful and fully up to Newsom's poetic standards, says
more about their love and less about what actually happened. It's still a
love song, but with a historical context and a tragic outcome!
2 Likes
4 Replies
General Comment
04/04/2010
Anyone have any ideas on what it means? All I can come up with:
"Kingfisher"
might allude to the myth of Alcyone, whose husband Ceyx was killed at
sea, came to her in a dream to tell her he had died, whereupon she went
to the seashore and threw herself in. They were both turned to
kingfishers.
Also, I guess the whole thing is sort of like an
investigation/questioning. Obviously several lines end in question
marks, but the part about "The long arm of the law" and "Who has seen it
all?" make it sound like they are looking for someone. A murderer,
perhaps, considering later there are images of murder (not least in the
dream at the end).
The lines "Blows rain upon the one you loved,
and though you were only sparring there's blood on the eye, unlace the
glove, say honey I am not sorry" are pretty unsettling for me, and show
this overarching violence.
Of course, also the pall, which is a sheet that you cover a coffin with, is an image of death.
Unfortunately,
I don't know how to put all of these things together. It's hard to tell
if Joanna is switching narrators throughout the song, who the
kingfisher is, how many people are asking questions and being asked
questions, how many people are loving other people or killing other
people, etc. The whole middle section, "We came by the boatload" to "Do
you consign your soul?" really baffles me. What might the recurring
images of bombs/ashes/volcanoes mean?
Also, the stanza, "Hung
from the underbelly of the Earth" is one of my favorite Joanna stanzas.
But I don't understand it at all.
Any feedback/thoughts/ideas?
1 Likes
2 Replies
General Comment
02/05/2010
I'm not entirely sure, but in my interpretation it seems to touch on the ideas of eternity and reincarnation. Saying that, I think sanfordc's take on it is very interesting indeed.
1 Likes
0 Replies
General Comment
27/03/2014
Here is a Gerrard Manley Hopkins poem:
As Kingfisher's Catch Fire
AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 5
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; 10
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
I think this poem works well with the song's religious/sacramental/nature imagery, but in a narrative sort of way. Thoughts?
1 Likes
1 Replies
General Comment
15/02/2010
Such a beautiful song!
It is too short, the day we are born
We commence without dinning
Should be:
It is too short, the day we are born
We commence with our dying
0 Likes
0 Replies
General Comment
18/02/2010
this is certifiably epic
0 Likes
0 Replies
General Comment
03/03/2010
it's obstinate, not ostinate. haha
it
sounds like it could be metaphorical for the end of a relationship. it
would thematically match the progress of the album, at least. so
wonderful.
0 Likes
2 Replies
General Comment
08/03/2010
This is the best song on Disc 3
0 Likes
0 Replies
General Comment
08/03/2010
This is the best song on Disc 3
0 Likes
0 Replies
General Comment
13/04/2010
I
think that this song is about Joanna contending with the idea of God. I
think that most of the song is adressed to him. She drifts back and
forth between doubt and moments of what seems to be faith. The first
couple lines and the last couple lines are most explicit, but the
relationship mentioned in some previous posts of we assume it to be one
with God.
The ashes, volcanos, and other images of destruction
call to mind a struggle with the idea of a good God in a painful world.
She speaks of her youth when, for her, faith was still possible, saying
in the third verse, saying,
When I could speak it was too late
Didn't you hear me calling?
Didn't you see my heart leap like
A pup in the constant barley?
Some really harsh and beautiful imagery that alludes to Christ is
Blows rain upon the one you loved
And though you were only sparring
There's blood on the eye, unlace the glove
Say, honey, I am not sorry
This
language seems a bit sarcastic, but it is hard to say. The whole song
is a bit pessimistic in its frustrations, but they are really well
played out.
Like all good poetry this song shouldn't be
pidgeon-holed as being excllusively about God, but largely the themes
she discusses stem from her questions concerning Him.
The Kingfisher by William Henry Davies
In ‘The Kingfisher’ Davies explores themes of solitude, nature, and beauty. The poem depicts the colors of the kingfisher, a small to medium-mixed brightly colored bird. They are often deep blue, orange, and yellow. It is likely that Davies was speaking about the common kingfisher, the most populous species in the United Kingdom.
The Kingfisher William Henry DaviesIt was the Rainbow gave thee birth, And left thee all her lovely hues; And, as her mother’s name was Tears, So runs it in my blood to choose For haunts the lonely pools, and keep In company with trees that weep. Go you and, with such glorious hues, Live with proud peacocks in green parks; On lawns as smooth as shining glass, Let every feather show its marks; Get thee on boughs and clap thy wings Before the windows of proud kings. Nay, lovely Bird, thou art not vain; Thou hast no proud, ambitious mind; I also love a quiet place That’s green, away from all mankind; A lonely pool, and let a tree Sigh with her bosom over me.
Summary of The Kingfisher
‘The Kingfisher’ by William Henry Davies addresses a kingfisher and how it was given “birth” by a rainbow. The rainbow left it all its hues.
The creature goes through the world with its “glorious hues”. These
allow it to stand proud alongside the colorful peacocks in the “green
parks”. It is just as vibrant. The bird could also hold its own against
the windows of kings, but it chooses not to. It is not “vain” as a human
would be. Instead, it prefers the quiet, just like the speaker does.
Structure of The Kingfisher
‘The Kingfisher’ by William Henry Davies is a single stanza poem that contains eighteen lines. These lines follow a rhyming pattern of ABCBDDBEFEGGHIJIKK. This is less a pattern than it is an arrangement of lines that at times breaks into rhyming couplets and half-rhymes. The latter, half-rhyme, also known as slant or partial rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This means that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused within one line, or multiple lines of verse. For instance, “you” and “hues” in line seven and “I” and “quiet” in line seventeen.
In regards to the meter, the lines are all divided into four sets of two beats, for a total of eight syllables per line.
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