The Kingfisher & The Trout

 

The "native" Brown Trout (Salmo trutta)

While I was cooking dinner over the campfire, I decided to stroll down to the creek to cool off my water bottle. Nestling it between two smooth, sturdy stones, I heard the telltale rattle of a Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) echo down the corridor of Big Laurel Creek. These birds hunt by sight with extreme precision, and dive from perches overhanging all sorts of wetland habitats to capture aquatic prey. Mostly piscivorous "fish-eaters," Belted Kingfishers spear prey by stabbing through  entire torsos with a blunt, knife-like beak. This prevents any slippery fish, frogs, reptiles, or even small mammals they can capture from escaping before the kingfisher can fly to a nearby perch.

A pair of these stunning, wetland birds now visits the Blue Ridge Discovery Center daily. Just after dawn and just before dusk, they land on the power lines stretching from the Field Station along the road to the cottage. Here, they catch a myriad prey to take to young farther down in the valley. Kingfisher nests are excavated by the parents’ formidable beak; forming hidden tunnels on barren banks. Sometimes they reach several feet back into the hillside. These nests can be over a mile from a good feeding site, so the birds can travel high above the ground for large distances across the countryside to capture food. Needless to say, I still haven't found their local nest; which is probably tucked on a desolate bank, far away on private property deep in the mountains along the bubbling water of Big Laurel.

The Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon),
flying over the creek the following morning.

As the loud, rattling call of the kingfisher drew closer, I saw her through the sunset-stained basswood leaves. Evidently, she saw me as well, because the dull blue bird quickly dropped her large prey and ascended with three powerful wing beats over the canopy; heading towards the road bridge to meet her mate and fly out of sight down the creek. Female kingfishers have a rusty-brown “belt” alongside the namesake blue band across their chest. Males only have a single, blue band. 

Curious about what she dropped, I walked a few yards around the fernmoss-blanketed stumps at the edge of the woods to the pebbled shore where she dropped her prey. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a medium-sized, “native” Brown Trout (Salmo trutta). Heaving for oxygen, it was lying sideways in the water, partially submerged. I walked over and investigated the struggling fish, and found that it had been skewered in the cranium by the kingfisher. I propped it up in a small channel between two rocks in an attempt to revive it, but after a few minutes, the trout’s fragile gills had stopped moving. Nor had the kingfisher returned to carry away her lost meal.

Brown trout were introduced from Germany as sport and food fish in the late 1800’s in Virginia, and strains of them have survived, adapted and reproduced, in the rivers and streams ever since. They grow into large, ferocious fish; and have displaced truly native brook trout in larger rivers and streams. Yet, not wanting to waste the fish, I decided that I might as well cook it over the campfire. Removing the head, I gutted the shimmering trout and left each fillet attached at the tail. I halved the fish into two fillets, connected by the tail. Then, I cut a green maple twig upon which I could hang the trout by the tail as it cooked. Before lowering it over the fire, I stuffed the fish with hemlock candles (buds of new growth that taste like soft pine needles and lemons) and yellow birch leaves (wintergreen-like flavor), and let it cook until the filets were sizzling, golden-brown. What a meal.

It never ceases to amaze me how full the Blue Ridge Mountains are with real, wild food. Battered and mystic forests always seem more comforting when there are animals and plants are working together with such Leopoldian "clockwork" that some sort of edible sustenance is omnipresent. Granted, brown trout aren't necessarily a natural part of this environment, but they too are nurtured by the thriving, pulsing surplus of the mountain environments.