Birdwatching - 2042 🐦

🦉 The common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

• Alcedo alcedinis, alcyon, or halcedo, halcedinis (lat.) kingfisher; word "hals" in ancient Greek language meant "sea", along with the word thalassa. According to ancient Greek mythology Alcyone (Alcyone), the daughter of the wind god Eol, was the wife of Keix, who drowned due to the wrath of the gods. Alcyone, out of grief, threw herself into the sea, and also died. The gods had mercy and turned the spouses into kingfishers. Looking for her husband, Alcyone calls all the time “Keix! Keix!" and dives, trying to find him in the sea. Alcyone days - two weeks of calm weather around the day winter solstice. During these days, Eol pacified the winds so that Alcyone, in the form of a kingfisher, could hatch chicks in her nest floating on the waves.
• atthis (ancient Greek mythology) Attis, a divine youth of extraordinary beauty

I see these incredibly beautiful birds year after year in the same place in the forest. It is a ravine with loose cliffs, inside of which a spring flows, and next to it there is a coastal zone with densely growing bushes near a large river.
These are simply ideal conditions for the life of these wonderful birds. They dig holes in the sandy cliffs, and in the river they catch fish, which they look out for while sitting on separate branches of bushes.

I don't know for sure whether the same pair comes here every year or not, or maybe these are their descendants. But they always have a stable mating season in mid-May. The male courts the female, brings her fish and treats her.