Wing and tail feather damage in Western Common Kingfishers Alcedo atthis ispida in relation to moult

ABSTRACT

Feathers have to be moulted to repair sustained damage. Our objective is to understand the relationship between the frequency of feather damage, feather sturdiness and moult sequence. Damage was recorded in five flight feather tracts for over 2000 Common Kingfishers Alcedo atthis ispida captured during a population study in northwestern Germany. We found that, of the feather tracts studied before the first moult, the tail feathers sustained most wear and damage, especially the more sturdily built outermost ones. Nevertheless, the probability of moulting a rectrix decreased from the central pair to the outside, while the damage risk increased. The sturdy distal primaries and the more lightly built innermost secondaries were the remiges with the highest frequency of damage, but not the most severe damage, while a row of midwing secondaries and primaries had the lowest damage risk. Where remiges had been retained when moult was suspended at the beginning of winter, about 75% of unmoulted feathers belonged to this low-risk group. The distal alula feather and the outermost primary covert had damage rates comparable to the low-risk row of remiges. Feather damage in the wings does not accumulate evenly over time, but increased markedly from March to April, coinciding with courtship and nest excavation, especially in females. Ultraviolet light seems to be an important factor for the observed feather deterioration, but is not the only one. The Kingfisher’s unusual moult sequence of remiges and primary coverts matches the distribution pattern of feather damage, but the sequence of the first tail-feather moult does not. Very few previous studies have investigated the relationship between patterns of feather damage and moult sequence. We hope this work encourages more investigation of this subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Kingfisher
• Alcedo atthis ispida
• feather damage
• moult

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to many people for their help in the field, including Michael Basse, Christoph Böhmer, Harald Bottin, Josef Brackelmann, Anthony Crease, Kristian Dillenburger, Joachim Drüke, Martin Gellermann, Erich Hennecke, Ernst Hochstein, Peter Hoffmann, Manfred Hölker, Thomas Jaspert, Ralf Joest, Andreas Kämpfer-Lauenstein, Hermann Knüwer, Bernhard Koch, Heinrich König, Martina König-Bruckert, Michael Landwehr, Wolf Lederer, Michael Leismann, Alfons Nagel, Uwe Römer, Katharina Schmidt-Loske and Uwe Vogt.

We thank Christoph Böhmer for weighing the flight feathers of four dead Kingfishers. Joachim Drüke, Sören Schweineberg and Martina Rheder helped with the digitisation of the biometric and moult data, which was partially funded by the University of Koblenz. The team of the Biological Station “Rieselfelder Münster”, especially Thomas Kepp, gave help with data management in the era before the personal computer and in the translation of the data into Excel. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Biologischer Umweltschutz e.V. (ABU) / Biological Station Soest supported the Kingfisher study in many ways. Christopher Husband improved our English. We thank Lukas Jenni and Raffael Winkler for their invaluable comments and constructive suggestions on earlier versions of this paper, as well as Stephen J. Ormerod and an unknown referee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).