Silver coin River kingfisher - proof

The river kingfisher was the last representative of the animal kingdom on colored silver coin of the Czech Mint from the "Endangered Nature" cycle.

Kingfisher is a brightly colored bird, which feeds in particular on smaller fish. It lurks the prey sitting on a branch hanging over the clear water and plopping up to 1 meter below the surface. It is therefore close to clean and slowly flowing streams and rivers, but also to ponds, lakes, dams and wetlands. It requires vertical walls of alluvial or sandy shores in which it sinks the holes which end up with the small chamber. Young animals are often drowned when trying to hunt, and only half of them mature. Although the czech population has intensified in recent years probably due to repeatedly mild winters when the rivers are not frozen. The kingfisher is still one of the protected species. The greatest threat to these birds is the lack of nesting opportunities related to the artificial regulation of the flows and their pollution. Another conflict with humans comes when the kingfishers choose their sheds, fish hatcheries or breeding creeks for their hunting grounds.

On the reverse side of the coin of the expert medal maker MgA. Martin Dasek there are two depictions of a threatened bird. The first one is embossed and presents a detail of the kingfisher's head and represents it as a successful fisherman who holds the prey caught in his beak. The other is colored and captures the kingfisher lurking on the branch and faithfully shows its distinctive coloring. The Czech Mint issue its own coins under the foreign license of the island of Niue, and their obverse side carries attributes of this issuer. These are the profile and the name of the emperor Elizabeth II., the nominal value of 1 DOLLAR (NZD) and the year of the issue 2018. The composition of the obverse side is completed by the depiction of the wild natural scenery made by academic sculptor Majka Wichner.

The coin is put into a spectacular packaging in the form of a illustrated booklet that tells the life of the kingfishers. You can store these books into collectors´boxes, which you can also find in the offer of the Czech Mint.