A belted kingfisher found at the Small Boat Harbor is on his way to an Anchorage bird hospital.
Fisherman Norman Hughes said he found the crested seabird swimming in circles in a harbor slip. “I grabbed it and put it on the dock and it just sat there,” Hughes said. “It wasn’t moving one wing and it wasn’t fighting me when I grabbed onto it.”
He turned it over to Pam Randles of the Takshanuk Watershed Council’s Ts’ats’ee Bird Observatory, who kept it overnight. She said came out of shock fter sucking down some sugar water. “He was perky in the morning. He’s a feisty little bugger.”
Randles said she was surprised by the size of the bird, which she compared to a crow. Workers at the American Bald Eagle Foundation determined the bird suffered a broken humerus, Randles said. It was to be shipped to Anchorage’s Bird Treatment and Learning Center.
Hughes said: “They’re really cool. I’ve never seen one up close before. He looked me in the eye with that Mohawk haircut.”