All species › Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers
Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers | Coraciiformes
Scharrelaarachtigen | Coraciiformes
Birds with a long, straight, pointed bill and with syndactyl feet: the third and fourth toes are fused along part of their length into a single broad surface. That foot is not for gripping but for shovelling, pushing loose sand backwards out of an excavated tunnel. The nest is a cavity accordingly: a tunnel in a bank, a tree hollow or a chamber hacked into a termite nest, with no lining. The young hatch naked and blind and grow up in the dark. Prey is seized with the tip of the bill and beaten against a branch before being swallowed, after which it goes down head first.
Families in this order
- Rollers | Coraciidae1 species
- Bee-eaters | Meropidae1 species
- Kingfishers | Alcedinidae10 speciesMost species of this family do not fish in this region. They sit on a lookout above open ground and drop onto lizards, insects and nestling birds; the kookaburra kills snakes by beating them repeatedly against a branch. Kookaburras live in groups of a breeding pair with young from earlier years, which help to feed and guard, and at first light and at dusk strike up a joint laughing chorus that marks out the boundaries of the territory. Several species hack their nest chamber into an arboreal termite nest: the termites seal the wall around it, so the chamber stays dry and warm. No nest material is brought in. The young grow up in a dark, heavily fouled cavity and carry a hook on the bill tip for the first weeks, with which the eldest can injure the younger ones.