Towheeblog

A pair of Belted Kingfishers are using a Salem cutbank for nesting. Cutbank as usual, though in Europe people often provide artifical cliffs for their kingfishers. This cliff faces the main roadway into Minto-Brown (leading to parking lots, 1 to 3). This nest hole is near the top of a thirty foot vertical dirt cliff (machine-made) on the east side of River Road South. I saw and heard one kingfisher give a short rattle call, then enter, to lay an egg, or incubate, perhaps? I waited some time but the bird did not re-emerge. The hole, meanwhile, just sat up there posing. It is about twice as wide as it is tall. Like badgers and ground squirrels, kingfishers can do their own excavation. There were other holes in the cutbank and rough-winged swallows were flying past. Looking for nest site, or just passing through? Time will tell.

Minto-Brown Island Park, Marion, Oregon, US
May 18, 2024
14 species

Canada Goose  2
Wood Duck  3
Mourning Dove  2
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Belted Kingfisher  1     nest in cutbank near main entrance to park
California Scrub-Jay  1
Tree Swallow  X
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  2
Barn Swallow  X
European Starling  X
American Robin  X
Song Sparrow  X
Red-winged Blackbird  X

AFTERNOON UPDATE
Spent some time observing kingfisher hole around 2PM. The only direct action there: two rough-wings flying to the lip, looking in, flapping on. Could the swallows tell the hole is taken? Scent of fish-breath? The same rough-wing pair checked a hole about ten feet away, same height, smaller opening. There they encountered a possessive-seeming Tree Swallow, well-known real estate tycoon.
Not far away a Black-headed Grosbeak was serenading his riparian woodlands.

Minto-Brown Island Park, Marion, Oregon, US
May 18, 2024 1:35 PM – 2:05 PM.
14 species

Hooded Merganser  2
Northern Flicker  1
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  1
Black-capped Chickadee  2
Tree Swallow  X
Violet-green Swallow  X
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  2
Barn Swallow  20
Bushtit  2
American Robin  X
Song Sparrow  5
Red-winged Blackbird  2
Black-headed Grosbeak  1     singing non-stop