Birdwatching - 3004 🐦

🦉 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

As I have said many times, these birds in my city nest in holes that they dig on the sandy walls of a ravine near a large river. And at the beginning of May every year they are always there. In these summer photos, a teenager who was sitting on the bushes and waiting for his parents.

Young birds are still not intelligent, so they do not yet understand all the dangers of the surrounding world. Therefore, they are not particularly afraid of, for example, people. As a rule, these birds take their children away from this place, closer to the river where they watch their parents fishing.