Description

Kingfishers are a group of smalltomedium-sized, brightly colored birds in the orderCoraciiformes.They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with mostspecies foundoutside of the Americas. The group is treated eitheras a singlefamily, the Alcedinidae, or as a suborder Alcedinescontainingthree families, Alcedinidae (river kingfishers),Halcyonidae (treekingfishers), and Cerylidae (water kingfishers).Roughly 90 speciesof kingfishers are described. All have largeheads, long, sharp,pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails.Most species havebright plumage with few differences between thesexes. Most speciesare tropical in distribution, and a slightmajority are found onlyin forests. They consume a wide range ofprey, as well as fish,usually caught by swooping down from a perch.While kingfishers areusually thought to live near rivers and eatfish, most species liveaway from water and eat small invertebrates.Like other members oftheir order, they nest in cavities, usuallytunnels dug into thenatural or artificial banks in the ground. Aquarter of allkingfishers nest in abandoned termite nests. A fewspecies,principally insular forms, are threatened with extinction.InBritain, the word "kingfisher" normally refers to thecommonkingfisher.