Owner Comments:
When most people get engaged, they exchange rings. However, being unconventional in many ways as we are, my now-fiancee and I exchanged coins instead. We prefer to make our own traditions rather than follow those of others in many ways. This major life event for me has also brought another fascinating modern dinosaur to the collection: The Common Kingfisher, species name Alcedo atthis.
The Common Kingfisher is a sparrow-sized kingfisher, with a length of 6.3 inches, a wingspan of 9.8 inches and a weight of 1.2 to 1.6 ounces. As for the coloration, you can see the beautiful plumage of the Common Kingfisher right on the coin. Females and males are almost identical in appearance except that the lower mandible of the female is orange-red with a black tip while males have a black lower mandible with a red tip. Geographically, Common Kingfishers range across Europe, North Africa, the northern part of the Middle East and parts of Central and Southern Asia. There are seven subspecies of the Common Kingfishers across this geographical range.
Common Kingfishers need to eat 60% of their bodyweight in fish a day to survive, so this causes them to be highly territorial as they need to command a substantial piece of river territory to ensure an ample food supply. As highly territorial birds, Common Kingfishers are solitary for the whole year aside from their mating season. Common Kingfishers hunt from a perch and detect their prey by sight and they are absolutely brutal killers. When a Common Kingfisher sights a suitable fish, it rapidly dives and grabs the poor fish by the tail using its beak. Rather than spear the fish with its beak like many other kingfishers, the Common Kingfisher kills its prey by beating it against its perch until it is dead. Then the Common Kingfisher swallows the poor, beaten fish whole and repeats this process. Like most predatory theropods, Common Kingfishers regurgitate pellets to rid themselves of the undigestible parts of their prey.
Though they are solitary birds, Common Kingfishers do mate for life. Mated pairs maintain separate territories most of they year, only merging them when it is time to mate. Pair bonds are strengthened at the outset of the breeding season, which varies by subspecies, by calling and ritual feeding. The nest is a burrow excavated by both parents. Common Kingfisher pairs produce clutches of between 2 and 10 eggs, which are incubated by both parents during the day and only the female at night. After 19-20 days, the eggs hatch altricial young which are fed and cared for by both parents. The young leave the nest at around 24-25 days of age. Two or three broods can be produced in a single breeding season.
While Common Kingfishers face few predators, they experience a high rate of mortality from year to year. While raptors, snakes and sometimes felids do prey upon Common Kingfishers, the impact of these predators is rather minimal. Most Common Kingfishers succumb to starvation and a severe winter and the resulting food shortages can cause huge mortality among these birds. Common Kingfishers are also highly susceptible to buildup of chemicals in their systems from the fish they eat, meaning that human activities are also a major source of the large mortality rates that these birds experience. Common Kingfishers can live to be 21 years old, but very few ever make it that long. They tend to live fast and die young.
So there’s the Common Kingfisher, a very interesting and amazing addition to this collection of modern dinosaurs.