The Kalba kingfisher is ours

The Khor Kalba mangrove forest in Sharjah is the largest and the oldest mangrove forest in the country. It lies on the south-eastern boundary of the UAE, with the Sultanate of Oman along the coastline of the Gulf of Oman.

Here, a visitor may sight a kingfisher (white-collared kingfisher, Todiramphus chloris, earlier named as Halcyon chloris), perched over a branch on a mangrove tree or on a boulder, partly submerged in water.

The Kalba kingfisher is totally isolated from other kingfisher populations in South and East Asia and even the one in Oman. Also, this species is not a migratory one. So, considering its total isolation, Simon Aspinall – a UAE-based British Birdwatcher – founded a new subspecies in 1996 for these over 100 kingfishers, naming them as Todiramphus chloris kalbaensis or Kalba Collared Kingfisher. So, we can consider this Kalba kingfisher as our own bird.

It’s pure blue-green and white in colour, with black bill and feet. A white collar separates the complete blue upper part of the bird.

Unlike most kingfishers, the Kalba kingfisher is more keen on catching crabs and snails than fish. Although most kingfishers build horizontal tunnel-nests in mounds or earth banks, our Kalba kingfisher builds nests in tree hollows, as there is no proper earth bank within the neighbourhood of the Kalba mangrove forest.

It is worth visiting the forest and the kingfisher.