23-10-09, 16:12
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Kingfishers (National Geographic)
Its perch serving as lookout and diving board, a kingfisher waits above the still waters of an English river, which reflects trees and sky. This flashy hunter can dive and return with a fish in two seconds.
An azure blur, a kingfisher plummets toward the water, reaching speeds of more than 25 miles an hour.
In a prey's-eye view, an adult female snaps up a stickleback, a small spiny fish, from just beneath the water's surface. Beak color gives away a kingfisher's gender: Males show mostly black, while females have an orange lower mandible that matches their feet.
The bird's aim is so unerring that even though a protective translucent membrane veils its eyes underwater, it can confidently catch fish to depths of two feet.
“The Kingfisher rises out of the black wave like a blue flower,” wrote poet Mary Oliver, paying tribute to the dashing river bird on its feeding rounds. Light scatters prismatically in microscopic feather structures to create the kingfisher's brilliant blue.
In a riverbank burrow a mother feeds one of her nine-day-old chicks a small fish, which it will swallow whole.
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