Description
Length covered 7 — 8 cm, weight of 25 — 45 grams. Has bright plumage, from above brilliant, bluish-green, with small light specks on the head and wings, from below rusty and is more red, a strip through an eye to a nape and a neck light. The head is big, a beak long and direct, wings and a tail short. The male and a female identical on a color, but males are slightly larger and brighter. Moves only by means of wings as pads short and aren't intended for long movement. Halcyon plumage close dim; its brightness is reached due to light refraction by feathers. Halcyons love a privacy, it is possible to see them seldom. A voice — faltering peep "tiip-tiip-tiip". Life expectancy about 15 years.
The look includes 6 subspecies widespread in Eurasia (to the Southern Scandinavia and St. Petersburg), in the northwest of Africa (to the Sahara), in Indonesia and New Zealand, on New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. There are settled and flying subspecies. About 5000-10000 couples nest in Italy.
Also meets in forest-steppe and steppe parts of Middle Siberia: Achinsk, Kansk, Krasnoyarsk, Minusinsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk in the Pavlodar region have (Kazakhstan), in upper courses of Yenisei and along his inflows Abakan, the Tuba, in lower reaches Kebezha, on Mozharsky lakes, and also down the river Chong (the basin of Angara). The most northern point of nesting — the river the Top Imbak. Occurs at the village of Pogodayevo and at the village of Vorogovo. Besides it is widespread in Ukraine: along the bed of the Desna River, inflow of the Southern Bug, the Krasnooskolsky reservoir and lower reaches of the river Oskol is noticed also on the river Mertvovod. It is noticed nesting in gulfs in Dnieper, Zaporizhia, in the Rivne region on the river Sluch in 2016. Also the halcyon often meets recently on South Zzapada of the Crimea (Balaclava, the Blue bay, in 2012 has been noticed on the cape Fiolent in Sevastopol). It is noted on the river Ushacha in Belarus [3].
In a midland of Russia the halcyon flies at the end of April — the beginning of May.
At a halcyon very strict requirements to a habitat: a pure reservoir with flowing water (not small, but not deep), break and overgrown coast. Halcyons don't love the close neighbourhood with other birds. The number of halcyons is reduced because of economic activity of the person now.
Food
Eats small fish (a bleak, a bull-calf miller's-thumb), more rare water invertebrates (for example, fresh-water shrimps). Sometimes eats water insects (a larva of a dragonfly) and young frogs. Norm of consumption of 10-12 small fishes in days in the absence of a family. Hunts for fish from air. It is capable to fly up from under water. Often watches for production, sitting on a branch over water. Chooses the most quiet corners in which it is very difficult to notice him for an ambush. If the attack has taken place without results, the halcyon continues to wait the victim on a branch. If fish is hooked, the halcyon eats her either on a branch, or in a nest.
Reproduction
Halcyons are monogamous though they among males meet such which make several families. To become couple, the male presents to a female the caught small fish. If the female accepts a gift, then the sentence is accepted. Couple is created only on warm season. In the winter halcyons scatter separately, but return in the spring to the old slot where couple reunites.
Halcyon eggs
Halcyons dig slots in steep coastal slopes, in close proximity to a reservoir. The hole is hidden by branches of trees or bushes, roots that the potential predator couldn't approach a hole. Distance between slots — from 0,3 to 1 km and more. The hole is horizontal, 0,3 — 1 m long. Digging of a hole of steam took more than a week. If on the way the hindrance meets, halcyons throw this hole and start digging of new. The hole comes to the end with the nested camera — extension. There is no laying in the slot, but if the slot old, then on a floor is formed a layer of scales, fish stones and other food residuals. In this layer larvae of flies are got. In a laying 5 — 8 (in general from 4 to 11) brilliant white eggs. Eggs are hatched out about three weeks, in turn by each parent.
Baby birds of a halcyon hatch without plumage and blind people. Grow quickly. Hatching happens not at the same time. Baby birds eat larvae of insects whom parents beforehand undress. In three weeks after birth baby birds can take off from a hole. They are colored less brightly, than adults and it is slightly less than the size. Several days baby birds fly with parents who continue to feed them. In good years halcyons manage to make the second laying (the end of June — the beginning of July) and to remove one more brood. The second laying becomes after embarkation of baby birds, but sometimes earlier. In the middle of August the second brood is ready to flight.
Flight and wintering
After a growing of the second brood, halcyons begin flight on a wintering. He begins both at the end of August, and in September and October. To Southern Europe and North Africa halcyons fly from the European part of Russia, to the Southern Asia — from Siberia. (Western Sayan Mountains) also the wintering populations live in Siberia (in particular, on inflows of the river Oya). Halcyons from the North Caucasus don't fly away for the winter.
Natural enemies
The halcyon practically has no enemies. Sometimes young halcyons are caught by hawks and falcons. The person seldom hunts this bird unless for the sake of an effigy.