Reading the weather in Devon from the movements of animals - Kingfisher

Kingfisher, by Ruskin

"The kingfisher builds its nest in holes in the banks of a river. Should it become dislodged and float down the river and out on the surface of the sea without capsizing, then there will be a long spell of fine weather.

In some parts of the country this bird is used as a vane, not exposed to the action of the wind, but stuffed and suspended in a room by a thin string, its bill always indicating the point from which the wind blows.

Into what corner peers the halcyon bill ?
Ha ! to the east yes see how stands the wind

The antients supposed that it built its nest on the ocean, and hatched its young at the winter solstice.

To account for the preservation of the nest and young birds amidst the severity of the season, they imagined that the bird had a power of lulling the raging of the waves during the period of incubation ; and this power was believed to reside in its song," so says the author of Chambers's Information for the People, vol. ii, page 447."

Hewett 1900