I was stunned over the last few days as I fished in Girl Lake north of Brainard, to watch what I thought was obviously Eastern Kingbirds feeding on insects from the surface of the lake in broad shallow waters along the lake shore. At first I was surprised to see one on one side of the lake, hovering like I was used to seeing in Oklahoma in fields along barbed wire fences, except this bird was hovering over lily pads and catching insects on the wing. When I changed locations on the lake, I spotted another sitting prominently on a stick protruding from the water and then totally shocked me by acting almost like a kingfisher, smacking the water repeatedly apparently feeding on aquatic insects or emerging larvae- and not just once but repeatedly - the entire time I fished.
Now I am open to this being what I saw but more likely perhaps I mis- IDed the birds? I got Eastern Kingbirds down pretty well I thought as I used to park along fence rows and watch Eastern or Western Kingbirds taking turns at passing grasshoppers along with the ever- present Scissor-tailed Flycathers. I was always comparing their behavior as I studies them all during and after an Animal Behavior course I took one summer and them continued on my own just to enjoy their acrobatics and aerial displays and differing abilities to track the flying grasshoppers that get out of hand in Oklahoma summers. Has anyone else seen this behavior or am I just making a bad ID and insisting that they are Eastern Kingbirds. They had the dark and light upper and lower bill mandibles and the tell-tell white fringe on the end of their tails. Coloration the same or perhaps a bit darker than what I am used to but the profiles and flying abilities were the same or very similar. Willing to be wrong Thomas Maiello Angel Environmental Management, Inc. Spring Lake Park, MN -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070707/0e2b68f5/attachment.html
