Emma Murphy is not your typical 8th grader. She is doing 9th-grade work in an accelerated program in the Kings Park Central school district and ornithology at a professional level. 

The COVID pandemic introduced Emma to her research bird. Emma said”2020 was the happiest year of my life.” 

Because of COVID-19 she was doing remote school and independent work, which gave her a lot of time to be outside. She started observing birds on the backyard feeder, and that interested her in taking pictures of the Blue Jays, Juncos, Cardinals and other feeder visitors. 

That drove an interest in learning more about birds. She met her photography mentor, Laura Eppig, who had come to photograph the Red-tailed hawks nesting on a neighbor’s property. 

Emma started her photography career with a borrowed cell phone, quickly moved up to her mom’s point-and-shoot, and now has graduated to a Canon EOS with 600 mm zoom. Her photo of a wood duck won a Ranger Rick magazine photo competition.

Ranger RIck is the National Wildlife Foundation’s magazine for young wildlife enthusiasts with a readership of 750,000.

While Emma was birding with her mom at Nissequogue River State Park she noticed a Belted Kingfisher. She said, “In early January of 2023 while photographing the Belted Kingfisher, I observed that the dive was never quite the same. I noticed that the position that the Belted Kingfisher was in right before entering the water seemed to change with the water’s condition (clear or murky as well as deep and shallow).

This led me to the question how underwater variables affect the dive of the Belted Kingfisher and, more importantly, how and if the Belted Kingfishers dive will change based on these variables. I decided to use a scientific process to solve this question through observing the Belted Kingfisher and collecting and analyzing data.”

Emma dove into researching the Belted Kingfisher and while she found information on what fish they target, their success in hunting, videos of the underwater portion of their hunt, and preferred hunting habitats, she found nothing on the change in dive posture that she was observing. 

Emma worked with Laura Eppig and other photographers to get good photos of the bird diving in various conditions to prove her hypothesis that the bird adjusted its diving behavior according to water conditions. Results were more interesting than she expected. There was a significant difference between deep and shallow and clear and murky water. 

Emma’s research concluded that “my hypothesis that underwater variables impact the dive of the Belted Kingfisher was correct.

After analyzing the data, in murky water the Belted Kingfisher has its wings fanned out, in clear water it dives in perfectly streamlined with its wings plaster to its sides, and in clear and deep water, though the position of the dive did not change, the angle did.

In shallow water and deep water, I got the same results of a 98% chance of diving in a streamlined position, and a 2% chance of diving in the water with wings fanned out to slow itself. Despite this going against the common logic that the kingfisher would want to be aerodynamic when diving in deep water, and not streamlined when diving in shallow water, so that it does not break its neck, the data shows it dives in the same position for deep and shallow water, even showing the kingfisher diving into what appears to be a puddle, in the same streamlined position.

Though the position of the dive stays the same, the angle of the dive does change. In shallow water, it always dives in at a 45-75 degree angle. In deep water, it dives in from directly above.

My finding showed that water clarity did impact the dive and that the Belted Kingfisher has developed a different dive depending on water clarity.

Many bodies of water, here and around the world, have become polluted due to humans degrading natural areas so that many bodies of water near populated places are murkier.

Since I have proven that the Kingfisher’s dive does change when water is murkier, thousands of years from now, perhaps, the species of Belted Kingfisher may evolve through natural selection. Based on if the habitat of the Belted Kingfisher is polluted or not.”

The project, “How Underwater Variables Affect the Dive of the Belted Kingfisher,” was first submitted to the New York State Young Birders. It was suggested that she submit her presentation for the paper session at the annual  New York State Ornithological Association meeting and it was accepted. Emma gave her talk to a full house of NYSOA attendees on September 23rd and was well received. 

Emma has enjoyed being part of NYSOA Young Birders, where she has met people from all over the state with similar interests. She is currently the Vice-President of the organization.

In the immediate future, she is working with a partner in science class and has proposed a project on the impact of either aquatic invasive plants or pollution on native waterbirds. Her career goal is to be a field ornithologist and photojournalist, researching, photographing and writing about interesting bird behavior she has observed and studied.