Kingfisher
Alcedo atthis
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A dart of electric blue along the river — usually heard before it's ever seen.
For a bird everyone hopes to see, the kingfisher is surprisingly easy to miss. It perches quietly on branches and posts overhanging slow, clear water, watching for small fish, and its brilliant blue-and-orange plumage can look almost black in poor light or deep shade. Most sightings are a fleeting flash of colour and a sharp, piping call as it shoots low over the water, following the line of the river rather than crossing open ground.
Behaviour
It hunts by watching. From a perch above the water it waits, then dives head-first to seize a small fish or aquatic insect in its dagger-like bill, stunning it against the perch before swallowing it whole. Pairs excavate a nest tunnel in a vertical riverbank, and both parents feed the chicks; outside the breeding season kingfishers are fiercely territorial along their own stretch of river.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Kingfishers (Alcedinidae)
- Size
- 16–17 cm · robin-sized
- UK status
- Amber-listed
Photo by Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons