IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

The commonly heard call comes from birds in flight, a harsh and loud ‘kee-kee-kyee-kyee…’ that is similar to White-throated Kingfisher but slightly slower in delivery and lower in pitch.

Also utters a short, decrescendo but loud trill.

And rarely a clipped ‘thip.’

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE

On passage and in winter it is found mainly in coastal areas, especially those with tidal mudflats, creeks, mangroves and gei wai, and occasionally also areas of wet agriculture and fish ponds, and even city parks. Carey et al. (2001) reported that in summer it was recorded inland at wooded valleys or hillsides; however, since 1999 there have been no such reports.

Generally less widespread than White-breasted Kingfisher but is recorded at suitable sites in the New Territories and on Lantau, and occasionally also in Kowloon, on HK Island and on smaller offshore islands. The winter atlas surveys of 2001-05 and 2016-19 saw a fall in the percentage of occupied 1km squares from 2.4% to 0.2% (see below).

OCCURRENCE

Black-capped Kingfisher is recorded mainly from October to April, with higher numbers occurring during October to December possibly indicating passage (Figure 1). It is rare from May to September, though there is a gradual increase in the number recorded in the monthly Deep Bay waterbird counts during that period. The highest count is 20 at Mai Po on 19 October 1986, with 12 at Starling Inlet on 21 October and 9 December 1997 the highest outside Deep Bay. However, such counts at a single site would now, unfortunately, be exceptional.

The literature indicates that Black-capped Kingfisher is now much less common in summer than previously. It was first recorded in HK by Jones (1908) who found several nest sites and stated it was “exceedingly common in the island of Hong Kong”. Vaughan and Jones (1913) stated that an arrival in April at the onset of the breeding season greatly augmented wintering numbers, which is in sharp contrast to the situation now when April records are relatively few. In the 1930s it was regarded as a resident, generally less common than White-breasted Kingfisher except in summers when influxes occurred, with very few found in winter in some years (Hutson 1931, Herklots 1934).

By the 1950s, however, it was reported to be chiefly a passage migrant and extremely rare as a breeding species (Dove and Goodhart 1955). In the late 1970s and early 1980s up to four birds were regularly reported from mid-June to mid-July; in the 1990s, however, there was one report of four birds, but all others concerned singles. Since 1999 there have only been two midsummer records. It is likely that widespread succession to closed-canopy shrubland and woodland is responsible for the disappearance of Black-capped Kingfisher in the breeding season, though it may not be the only factor.

In the non-breeding season, compared to the 1980s the frequency of reports in the 1990s was much lower, especially during the peak month of October, and the highest counts fell from 20 to 12. However, it was still regarded by Carey et al. (2001) as a “locally common winter visitor and passage migrant”. Since November 2010, however, all single-site counts are of one or two birds apart from three at Starling Inlet in November 2017, and the epithet ‘common’ is now much too optimistic.

The systematic waterbird counts since 1998 in Deep Bay, its core range in HK, provide further evidence of a decline in winter (Figure 2). The mean peak count in the six winter periods from 1998/99 to 2003/04 was eight, while in the six winter periods from 2015/16 to 2020/21 it was 1.6. However, recent counts for the whole of Deep Bay including the Shenzhen side appear to counter this trend, and it will be interesting to see how this continues.

It is difficult to explain the decline in the number of birds in autumn and winter in terms of factors in HK. Although the area of available mudflat has reduced in recent years due to the spread of the invasive ‘Apple Mangrove’ Sonneratia apetala and S. caseolaris, the decline had set in before this became widespread. It is likely that we must look elsewhere for the cause of the decline in both migrant and wintering populations.

This species was commercially exploited in the manufacture of ‘kingfisher enamel’ in which its feathers were mounted behind glass (Kershaw 1904, Vaughan and Jones 1913). It was imported into HK from China during 1965-1980 (Melville 1982).

BREEDING

Although breeding has been suspected on a number of occasions since 1958, no occupied nest-holes have been found. Up to two dependent juveniles accompanied by one or two adults have been reported from just two sites, Shouson Hill on 26 June 1959 and Pak Fu Shan on 26 June 1997. These tally with laying dates of mid-May to mid-June given in Jones (1908), who stated that in the third week of April pairs appear at breeding sites inland some distance away from wintering areas. The nest site was usually the perpendicular face of a decomposed granite cliff such as a water nullah or a place where a landslip had occurred. The site was used repeatedly, and sometimes there was repeat occupancy of the same nest hole. The nest hole is rarely more than two feet in length, never more than three, and the eggs are laid at the end in a bare excavation of some 15 inches in diameter. The regurgitated inedible parts of prey items are disgorged around the glossy white eggs. Pairs are generally single-brooded.

BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET

Crustaceans, especially crabs, have frequently been noted as the preferred food of this species. Other food items in summer include Coleoptera (Jones 1908) as well as unidentified insects and large spiders. It appears not to take small reptiles as White-throated Kingfisher does.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS

Largely a migratory kingfisher that breeds in much of lowland China and the Korean peninsula, and winters in coastal south China, Indochina, coastal India and elsewhere in the north, southeast Asia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and Sulawesi (Woodall and Kirwan 2020). In China it is a summer visitor to lowland areas as far northeast as Liaoning, present all year in southeast coastal provinces and is a winter visitor to Yunnan (Liu and Chen 2020).

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: VULNERABLE. Population decreasing primarily as a result of intensive riparian management (although it is largely a coastal species in HK).