The Sangihe Dwarf-Kingfisher has not been recorded since 1997 and it is probably in continuing decline because of habitat loss or already extinct. The species is described in Hume’s “Extinct Birds” published in 2012. Ceyx fallax and C. sangirensis were before 2014 lumped as C. fallax. No recent surveys (f.e Riley 1999, Faustino 2003, Burung […]
Java Blue-banded Kingfisher (Alcedo Euryzona) is a “new” species split of from nominate status to full species status in 2013. This Java endemic kingfisher is firmly bound to rivers in lowland forest which is lost in an alarming rate throughout its range. There is only one sighting known, in 2009, since the thirties, the population […]
Googarh, the iguana, was married to Moodai, the opossum and Cookooburrah, the laughing jackass. Cookooburrah was the mother of three sons, one grown up and living away from her, the other two only little boys. They had their camps near a goolahgool, whence they obtained water. A goolahgool is a water-holding tree, of the iron […]
Ceyx was king of Thessaly and was son of Hesperus (Helios), the Day-star, and the glow of his beauty reminded one of his father. Halcyone, the daughter of Aeolus, was his wife, and devotedly attached to him. Now Ceyx was in deep affliction for the loss of his brother. He thought best, therefore, to make […]
Txamsem went walking, not knowing which way to turn. He came to a creek, and saw a house in front of him. It was a very nice house. He went toward it; and when he went in, he saw a good-looking young man who was making a hook. When Txamsem entered, the young man looked […]
Some old men say that the Kingfisher was meant in the beginning to be a water bird, but as he had not been given either web feet or a good bill, so he could not make a living. The animals held a council over it and decided to make him a bill like a long […]
Alcyone, daughter of Eolus, the wind-god, impelled by love for her husband Ceyx, whom she found dead on the shore after a shipwreck, threw herself into the sea. The gods, rewarding their conjugal love, changed the pair into kingfishers. What connection exists between this, which is simply a classic yarn, and the ancient theory of […]
In Pawnee legends, the Kingfisher figures with the wolf. There was a wolf who was lodge brother to Manabozho. One day he went forth and returned no more, and Manabozho mourned, for he loved him. So he followed his tracks to the Big River; and he asked a kingfisher if he had seen a wolf […]
Ringed Kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata) Science Article 1 abstract According to the A.O.U. Check-list (fifth Ed., Baltimore, Amer. Ornithol. Union, 1957) the widespread neotropical Ringed Kingfisher (MegaceryIe torquata) is known from the United States only as ‘accidental on the lower Rio Grande in Texas (Laredo, June 2, 1888).’ More recent publications (Wolfe, Check-list of the birds […]
Green Kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana) Science Article 1 abstract Green Kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana) inhabits watercourses and shores from southern Texas and Arizona to the northern tributaries of Hudson’s La Plata, from the brackish water of mangrove-fringed lagoons to mountain streams 7000 feet above the sea. The two extremes of habitat are the exception, however; it prefers […]