African Wildlife & Environment Issue 79

Nadine Clarke

KINGFISHERS ARE KING! Have you ever had the wonderful opportunity of spotting a kingfisher? They are such interesting birds and there is so much to learn from them.We have ten different kinds of kingfishers in South Africa, and they come in all shapes and sizes. From the tiniest little Pygmy Kingfisher through to our very own Giant Kingfisher and not all of them catch fish! Many of the kingfishers also enjoy a menu of insects, crabs, frogs and even reptiles.

What does the kingfisher have to do with a bullet train? Catching a fish with your bare hands is a challenge as the fish have sensitive

lines along the sides of their bodies which allows them to sense any movement in the water. Any sudden movement from your hands in the water and the fish are gone. So how does the kingfisher catch fish diving into the water at 11m

per second without scaring the fish away? The secret is in the shape of the beak.This allows the kingfisher beak to break the water without a splash giving them a few milliseconds to catch the fish before they are scared off.

The bullet train can reach speeds of over 300km an hour, however with speed came a huge problem. When the train came out of a tunnel it made a huge noise like a large clap of thunder.The sound was

caused by the air pressure changes between the tunnel and the air outside. Many people living in the surrounding areas of the

tunnel complained about the noise which could be heard from a long distance away. One of the bullet trains chief engineers was an avid birdwatcher. He wondered “Is there something in nature that travels quickly and smoothly between two very different mediums, like air and water?” One day whilst bird watching he noticed how the kingfisher dived into the water to catch fish with an extraordinarily little splash from the air into the water.This inspired him to redesign the front-end of the train after the beak of the kingfisher. Not only did the new design of the nose make the train quieter when moving from the tunnel out into the open but it also reduced the electricity usage by 15% and allowed the train to travel faster. Spending time in nature and being curious about what you see can help solve many problems that we have in the world today.

Take a look

54 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 79 (2021)