kingfisher

Kingfisher
Black-backed Kingfisher
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Coraciiformes
Suborder:	Alcedines
Families
Alcedinidae Halcyonidae Cerylidae

Kingfishers are a group of small to medium sized brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species being found in the Old World and Australia. The group is treated either as a single family, Alcedinidae, or as a suborder Alcedines containing three families, Alcedinidae (river kingfishers), Halcyonidae (tree kingfishers), and Cerylidae (water kingfishers). There are roughly 90 species of kingfisher. All have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails. Most species have bright plumage with little differences between the sexes. Most species are tropical in distribution, and a slight majority are found only in forests. They consume a wide range of prey as well as fish, usually caught by swooping down from a perch. Like other members of their order they nest in cavities, usually tunnels dug into the natural or artificial banks in the ground. A few species, principally insular forms, are threatened with extinction.

Taxonomy

The Common Kingfisher is abundant throughout many parts of Europe and Africa

The taxonomy of the three families is complex and rather controversial. Although commonly assigned to the order Coraciiformes, from this level down confusion sets in.

The kingfishers were traditionally treated as one family, Alcedinidae with three subfamilies, but following the 1990s revolution in bird taxonomy, the three former subfamilies are now usually elevated to familial level. That move was supported by chromosome and DNA-DNA hybridisation studies, but challenged on the grounds that all three groups are monophyletic with respect to the other Coraciiformes. This leads to them being grouped as the suborder Alcedines.

The tree kingfishers have been previously given the familial name Dacelonidae but Halcyonidae has priority. This group derives from a very ancient divergence from the ancestral stock.

Distribution and habitat

The Common Kingfisher is abundant throughout many parts of Europe and Africa

The kingfishers have a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring throughout the worlds tropics and temperate regions. They are absent from the polar regions and some of the worlds driest deserts. A number of species have reached islands groups, particularly in the south and east Pacific Ocean. The Old World tropics and Australasia are the core area for this group. Europe and North America north of Mexico are very poorly represented with only one common kingfisher (Common Kingfisher and Belted Kingfisher respectively), and a couple of uncommon or very local species each: (Ringed Kingfisher and Green Kingfisher in the southwest USA, Pied Kingfisher and White-breasted Kingfisher in SE Europe). The six species occurring in the Americas are four closely related green kingfishers in the genus Chloroceryle and two large crested kingfishers in the genus Megaceryle, suggesting that the sparse representation in the western hemisphere evolved from just one or two original colonising species.^[1] Even tropical South America has only five species plus wintering Belted Kingfisher. In comparison, the tiny African country of The Gambia has eight resident species in its 120 by 20 mi. (192 by 32 km) area.

Kingfishers occupy a wide range of habitats. While they are often associated with rivers and lakes, over half the worlds species are found in forests and forested streams. they also occupy a wide range of other habitats. The Red-backed Kingfisher of Australia lives in the driest deserts, although kingfishers are absent from other dry deserts like the Sahara. Other species live high in mountains, or in open woodland, and a number of species live on tropical coral atolls.^[1]

Morphology

The smallest species of kingfisher is the African Dwarf Kingfisher (Ispidina lecontei), which averages at 10.4 g and 10 cm (4 inches). The largest overall is the Giant Kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima), at an average of 355 g (13.5 oz) and 45 cm (18 inches). However, the familiar Australian kingfisher known as the Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) may be the heaviest species, since large individuals exceeding 450 g (1 lb) are not rare. In most species there are no differences between the sexes, when there are differences they are quite small (less than 10%).^[1]

The kingfishers have a long, dagger-like bill. The bill is usually longer and more compressed in species that hunt fish, and shorter and more broad in species that hunt prey off the ground. The largest and most atypical bill is that of the Shovel-billed Kingfisher, which is used to dig through the forest floor in search of prey.

They are able to see well both in air and under water while swimming. Their eyes also have evolved an egg-shaped lens able to focus in the two different environments.

Behaviour

Diet and feeding

While kingfishers are often associated with fish, most species also consume other prey. Here a Collared Kingfisher in Saipan has caught a lizard.

The kingfishers feed on a wide variety of items. They are most famous for hunting and eating fish, and some species do specialise in catching fish, but other species take crustaceans, frogs and other amphibians, annelid worms, molluscs, insects, spiders, centipedes, reptiles (including snakes) and even birds and mammals. Individual species may specialise in a few items or take a wide variety of prey, and for species with large global distributions different populations may have different diets. Woodland and forest kingfishers take mainly insects, whereas the water kingfishers are more specialised in taking fish. The Red-backed Kingfisher has been observed hammering into the mud nests of Fairy Martins to feed on their nestlings.^[2] Kingfishers usually hunt from a exposed perch, when a prey item is observed the kingfisher swoops down to snatch it, then returns to the perch. Kingfishers of all three families beat larger prey on a perch in order to kill the prey and to dislodge or break protective spines and bones. Having beaten the prey it is manipulated and then swallowed.^[1]

Breeding

Kingfishers are territorial, with these territories being vigorously defended in some species. They are generally monogamous, although cooperative breeding has been observed in some species. In a few species cooperative breeding is quite common, for example the laughing Kookaburra.^[1]

Like many forest living kingfishers the Yellow-billed Kingfisher often nests in arboreal termite nests

Like all Coraciiformes the kingfishers are cavity nesters, with most species nesting in holes dug in the ground. These holes are usually in earth banks on the sides of rivers, lakes or human ditches and banks. Some species may nest in holes in trees, the earth clinging to the roots of an uprooted tree, or arboreal nests of termites (termitarium). These termite nests are common in forest species. The nests take the form of a small chamber at the end of a tunnel. Nest digging duties are shared; during the initial excavations the bird may fly at the chosen site with considerable force, and birds have injured themselves fatally while doing this. The length of the tunnels varies by species and location, nests in termitariums are necessarily much shorter than those dug into the earth, and nests in harder substrate are shorter than those in soft soil or sand. The longest tunnels recorded are those of the Giant Kingfisher, which have been found to be 8.5 m long.^[1]

The eggs of kinfishers are invariably white and glossy. The typical clutch size varies by species; some of the very large and very small species lay as few as two eggs per clutch, whereas others may lay 10 eggs, the average is around 3 to six eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs.^[1]

Relationship with humans

Halcyon, which gives its name to the family Halcyonidae, is a mythical bird similar to the kingfisher.

"Ovid and Hyginus both also make the metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for "halcyon days", the seven days in winter when storms never occur. They state that these were originally the seven days each year (either side of the shortest day of the year) during which Alcyone ([as a kingfisher]) laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she could do so in safety. The phrase has since become a term used to describe a peaceful time generally."

The etymology of kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is obscure; the term comes from king's fisher, but why that name was applied is not known^[3].

References

External links

• ARKive - images and movies of the Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)
• Kingfisher videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• Kingfisher photos from Turkey
• A hunting European Kingfisher