Dear All,
A friend and well-known author in South Africa Hugh Chittenden, has
asked me about the diets at the nest site and away from the nest of
Mangrove Kingfisher in the East African region. I told him that living
a long way from the coast I had little intimate experience with the
species. But I would put his queries on the net, advising that we have
very many dedicated birders living along the coast, and they would
surely be able to assist with some details.

What he found is that Mozambique birds feed on crabs almost
exclusively in the winter, but move inland to breed in wooded areas
and then live on a crab-free diet and feed this to their young.

In KZNatal the birds are present only as non-breeding wintering birds
and feed almost exclusively on crabs, then migrate south in summer to
breed on the Eastern Cape when they appear to feed on invertebrates
and not crabs, and crabs seem not to be in the diet that they feed
their young.
Hugh was asking the question, is there an important reason for this
change of diet seasonally. (See attachment).

He was asking what they feed their young on at the nest in East
Africa, and the diet when non-breeding. Personally I have only thought
of Mangrove Kingfisher as a migrant from further south rather than a
breeding bird, but they do seem to call territorially.
They are a breeding resident on Pemba Island, but only seasonal to
Zanzibar, and there must be some information from these two islands.
The local literature does not suggest that it is a migrant in EAf, in
fact it states that it is a resident along the entire seaboard.

They do wander, and I have only ever seen one bird that was obviously
lost and that was in Tanzania on the Pangani River west of the
Usambaras (where the Black-bellied Sunbirds breed).

So it would appear that Hugh has a very interesting subject that he is
studying and it would be great to help him out with all the
information from EAf that we can provide. From reading what is said
about our birds, we still have much to learn too, as I think that to
call it just a breeding resident is oversimplification.

This is what Hugh wrote, and there is an attachment…

“Hi Brian,
…I'd like to request info from you regarding Mangrove Kingfishers. I
have been monitoring this species of late. They are winter visitors
here (Mtunzini, just south of Richards Bay). I'll forward recent
correspondence and photos in a separate email.
The two different populations in southern Africa have different
breeding strategies. The South African population migrates south to
the eastern Cape estuaries to breed, then returns to n KwaZulu-Natal
region for winter. The Mozambique birds act differently. They simply
move inland and breed in termitaria they find in lowland
forest/woodland during the breeding season. No suitable termitaria in
South Africa.
So, the southern African birds essentially have a summer and a winter
diet. The winter diet is predominantly crabs (mangrove habitat), and
summer a mix, with few, if any crabs I should think. There is little
published data on food delivered to nests.
I have been trying to understand these feeding regimes because it
interests me why Mangrove Kingfishers in SA migrate south to breed
when there are Barbet and Woodpecker holes available to them here in
KZN??
I'd be interested in what your birds feed on summer, versus winter?
Regards
Hugh


Hugh’s email is <hugh@rarebirds.co.za>

It would be interesting to copy your email to kenyabirdsnet, so we can
all see the interesting facts emerging,

Best to all
Brian