Birds of Birdland: Kingfisher

The Kingfisher is a small to medium sized bird with very bright colors. Some scientists treat them as either a single family or a suborder that has three families: the river kingfisher, the tree kingfisher, and the water kingfisher. Overall, there are 90 different species of kingfisher and all have larger heads with long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and very stubby tails. Most of them have very bright, beautiful plumage with only minor differences between the sexes.

They eat a very wide variety of different things - from fish to insects - and they love to swoop down and catch their prey. They are famous for hunting and eating a wide variety of fish and some species of kingfisher specialize in catching only fish. Other species of kingfisher love to eat crustaceans, frogs, worms, molluscs, spiders, centipedes, insects, and other amphibians as well as some snakes. Depending on where they live will also affect what their diet consists of, as

woodland and forest kingfishers will often eat mainly insects, such as grasshoppers, and those that live near the water will specialize more in fish. Just about all kingfishers will hunt from an exposed perch, watching for prey to peek it's head out, then swooping down to get it, and returning to the perch. Larger prey is beaten against the perch so that it is killed and any bones and spines are dislodged or broken so that the bird can eat it.

Kingfishers are a very territorial species and they vigorously defend their breeding areas. They are normally monogamous, even though some cooperative breeding has been observed in some species.

Like all birds in the Coraciiformes order, kingfishers are cavity nesters and most dig holes in the ground for their nests. These holes are normally in earth banks near rivers, lakes, or ditches and some might even nest in trees, where the earth is clinging to the roots of an uprooted tree, or in nests of termites. Normally, their nests have a small chamber at the end of a tunnel and the digging duties are shared. At the beginning for the excavation, a bird may fly at the chosen site with a very considerable force and many birds injure themselves fatally by doing this. Different species of kingfishers have different lengths that they like to use for the tunnel, and it also depends on where they are building their nests as well. Some species, like the Giant Kingfisher, have had tunnels that have been found to be over 8 meters long.

Since kingfishers are generally shy birds, they are generally mentioned heavily in human culture due to their bright plumage and interesting behaviors. There are some species of kingfisher that are threatened by human activities and are actually in danger of becomming extinct. From habitat loss to introduced species that are running them out of their normal homes and food supplies, there are several of them that are placed on the conservation lists.