"~ jan" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:36:19 CST, kathy wrote:

Thought I'd give Mr. Kingfisher his own posting away from
the heron thread.

One winter a Kingfisher showed up at my pond and took advantage
of the aspen tree next to the pond as a launching pad from which to
purloin fish.
ak!!
Put in a fake plastic fish anchored to a rock. Mr. Kingfisher showed
up for his afternoon snack. Zoom - into the water he went but this
time he came out without a fish! I could tell he had gone for the fake
fish.
He shook himself off, chattered about it a bit and in he went again.
Out again and no fish! Well, now he was good and mad! He bounced
around on the branches, talked himself into another attempt and in
he went. Out again and still no fish! You've never seen a wetter or
madder bird. All in all, he dove in six times that day trying to get the
dratted fake fish out of the pond. All six times he came back out with an
empty beak. I *almost* felt sorry for him...

k :-)

Which goes to show, as long as you don't live in TN, a fake fish will
work.
====================================
What a tale! That Kingfisher sounds like that male Cardinal we had here
that was abnormally stupid and unable to learn. What bird would ignore all
the other fish in a pond and keep going for, and wasting it's time on the
one it couldn't get? The special decoy? =:-O

BTW the Cardinal actually killed itself against the winow fighting it's own
reflection for days. The glass was streaked with it's blood. When I covered
that window it moved to another window. Like some humans, other creatures
are also born unable to learn.

The next Kingfisher may be smarter and not ignore all the other fish to
obsess on a decoy it can't get. ;-)

--
RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
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