The Tale of The Woodland Kingfisher

Table of Contents

Painting|| The lurking kingfisher

My painting of a woodland kingfisher

I started painting this woodland kingfisher for sometime now. I’ve been on it for quite somedays because it’s been on and off, busy with one thing or the other then I’d get back to continue from where I left till I finished. This year one of my goals is to improve on my art generally and painting is one of them, not just improving alone, but painting more original works.

So I started of painting this bird I’ve had a picture of for a long while. Though not perfect but there’s a story behind the painting and it reminded me of the event. Here’s a little background check about this beautiful bird.

A specie of kingfisher

The Kingfisher is a small or medium sized bright colored bird it has up to 114 species mostly found in Africa, Asia and Oceania. All kingfishers have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills that is bigger than it’s body mass, short legs and stubby tails (depending on the specie). Most species have bright plumage with small differences in sexes and this specie is called the Woodland kingfisher.

The Woodland Kingfisher

The woodland kingfisher

Specie: H. Senegalensis

Binomial name: Halcyon senegalensis

The woodland kingfisher is widely spread out in Africa it is a specie that is mostly found in forests or where there are trees, as well as human habitation. In a dry habitat, it can also live away from water feeding on insects and smaller animals.

The woodland kingfisher can be aggressive when it feels threatened even to humans. It has a very attractive way of showing of its colour patterned wings.

The common Kingfisher

The Great Offender

One cool evening we were all relaxed at home, chattering and laughing about things that seemed funny to us, my parents were in their room then my brother left to do something else all of a sudden he returned with a bird, we were all dazed by the beauty that struck us, a medium sized bird which had an electric blueish green on its feathers, wings and tail and a pale brown, pearl white colour it’s head, breast and under side with a bit of lemon green and gainsboro colour on the body and a large bicolored bill red above and black below which makes it distinctly unique from other kingfishers as i researched, amazing right!

My brother explained how he caught the bird, it was in our fish pond, swimming in the pond devouring fingerlings.

In a twinkle of an eye it caught sight of him and made to escape He noticed the bird and ran as fast as usian bolt to capture the bird.

It swam left right and center in a bid to escape but found it hard because of the net covering over the pond. He chased it around till it got weaker calling for help to catch this offender it was finally caught. It was indeed a great offender, as he brought it in and told us how he caught it we all knew it was a kingfisher. it was mixed feelings of amazement and resentment.

A different specie

We all admired it’s beauty and thought about different kinds of punishment it could recieve for eating our fishes which were being groomed for sale. We laughed over the unprecedented ideas that came up and finally let it fly away.

We couldn’t help but wonder how such bird would be found in an environment like ours. So I decided to paint this beautiful bird and tried as much as possible to infuse the colors I saw.