All species › Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers
Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers | Coraciiformes
Scharrelaarachtigen | Coraciiformes
Colourful birds with a large head, short legs and a comparatively stout bill; much of the colour comes not from pigment but from the structure of the feather, so that it shifts with the light. The foot is syndactyl: the third and fourth toes are fused over part of their length, so it serves as a clamp for perching and is of little use for walking. All of them breed in a self-dug tunnel in an earth bank or riverbank, without nest material, on round white eggs. In the region the order consists of three families. The five todies are endemic to the Greater Antilles. Trinidad and Tobago hold Trinidad Motmot, with a long tail whose central feathers have a bare stretch of shaft and a racket-shaped tip. Among the kingfishers, Belted Kingfisher winters on almost every island; the other species are found mainly on Trinidad.
Families in this order
- Todies | Todidae5 speciesTodies are one of the bird families confined entirely to the Caribbean: the five species of the single genus occur only in the Greater Antilles, one on Cuba, one on Jamaica, one on Puerto Rico and two on Hispaniola. Within the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers the todies stand closest to the motmots. They are small, compact birds of about ten centimetres, bright green above with a red throat, pale underparts and a long, flat bill that is usually red below and has finely serrated edges. They sit still on a thin twig, bill angled upwards, and take insects and spiders from the undersides of leaves with a short sally. The voice consists of short beeping or harsh notes, and in some species the wings make a rattling sound in flight. The nest is a tunnel dug by the birds in an earth bank or riverbank, ending in a chamber for the white eggs.
- Motmots | Momotidae1 speciesMotmots are a family of tropical America; within the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers they are the closest relatives of the todies. One species lives in the region, the Trinidad Motmot, found only on Trinidad and Tobago and common on Tobago in forest and gardens. It is a slender, medium-sized bird, green above and rufous below, with a black mask, a blue band around the crown and a long tail. In many species, this one included, the two central tail feathers end in a racket; the loose barbs above it are lost through wear and preening, leaving a bare shaft with a small vane at the tip. When perched it often swings its tail like a pendulum. It hunts from a branch for large insects and lizards, and also eats fruit. The voice is a low, hollow, often doubled hoot, mainly at dawn and dusk. The nest is a long tunnel dug in an earth bank, with the white eggs in a chamber at the end.
- Kingfishers | Alcedinidae5 speciesCompactly built birds with a large head, a long straight dagger of a bill, a very short tail and small syndactyl feet that are hardly walked on. They fish from a branch over the water or from a hover: the bird drops in head first, seizes the fish crosswise, stuns it against the perch and swallows it head first, bringing bones and scales back up as pellets. The flight is fast, low and dead straight over the water, on whirring wings. The nest is an unlined chamber at the end of a tunnel in a steep earth bank; the round white eggs lie on the remains of pellets, and the young carry their growing feathers for a long time in horny sheaths.