All species › Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers
Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers | Coraciiformes
Scharrelaarachtigen | Coraciiformes
Worldwide this order also includes rollers, bee-eaters, motmots and todies; this book covers only the kingfisher family. What holds the order together is chiefly the structure of the feet: the front toes are fused at the base, a feature few other bird groups share. Kingfishers have a large head and a long, straight, dagger-like bill, and hunt from a perch, diving into the water for fish or dropping to the ground for insects and small vertebrates. The nest is a tunnel the birds dig themselves into a steep bank, and the naked chicks grow up in the darkness of the nest chamber.
Families in this order
- Kingfishers | Alcedinidae3 speciesOf the hundreds of kingfisher species worldwide, only three occur in North America, all large fish-eaters in the genera Megaceryle and Chloroceryle. Where no suitable perch overhangs the water, they instead hover in place before plunging straight down; indigestible bones and scales from the prey are then coughed up as small pellets. A rattling, chattering call, often given in flight, marks out a long, narrow territory along a shoreline or stream and is, in all three species, never a proper song. Unusually for a North American bird, the females of these kingfishers also carry an extra coloured breast band that the males lack.