All species › Kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers › Kingfishers › Green Kingfisher
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Green Kingfisher | Chloroceryle americana
Groene ijsvogel | Martín pescador verde
The Green Kingfisher is a small green-and-white kingfisher of streams, rivers and ponds and the most widespread kingfisher of the guide area: it breeds from northern Mexico to Panama, also in dry regions along rivers lined with trees. It flies fast and low over the water and perches on low branches or stones at the water's edge.
Voice
A dry tik or tik-tik, like two pebbles knocked together, and a harsh, buzzing scold.
Recording: Franco Vushurovich — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–21 cm, with a long, black bill and a small crest. The upperparts are dark glossy green, with rows of white spots on the wings; the outer tail feathers are largely white, which shows especially when the bird flushes. A white collar runs round the neck; the throat and belly are white, with green spots on the flanks. The male has a broad rufous breast band. The female lacks the rufous and has two bands of green spots across the breast and upper belly. Young birds are duller, with small pale spots on the crown and wing coverts.
Confusion species
Amazon Kingfisher Chloroceryle amazona has the same pattern but is much larger, with a heavier bill and hardly any white in the wing and tail. American Pygmy Kingfisher Chloroceryle aenea is much smaller and has largely rufous underparts; Green-and-rufous Kingfisher Chloroceryle inda is slightly larger and entirely rufous below.
Habitat
Clear, calm or slow-flowing streams and rivers with vegetated banks, also ponds, reservoirs, ditches, fish ponds and the edges of mangroves; from sea level to about 1500 m, in dry regions along rivers with gallery forest. It hunts from a low perch for small fish. It nests in a tunnel of about one metre in an earth bank.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Almost the entire mainland of the guide area, on both slopes and in the interior, from Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas south through all of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama; absent from Baja California. Outside the guide area in southern Texas and Arizona, on Trinidad and Tobago and through South America to central Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along almost any stream or river with clear water, also in parks and at farm ponds. A small green bird that flies off fast and low over the water, with white flashes in the tail, is often this species.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in the guide area and one of the least particular kingfishers, though it disappears where streams become heavily polluted or muddy.
Scientific name
Chloroceryle americana | (Gmelin, 1788)
Gmelin described the species in 1788 as Alcedo americana; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chloroceryle was introduced in 1848 by Kaup. Chloroceryle combines Greek khlōros 'green' with the genus Ceryle: 'green Ceryle', after the green upperparts. americana is Latin for 'American', after its range. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.