Scientific Name:   Megaceryle alcyon

Length:   11.0-13.8 in (28-35 cm)

Weight:   4.9-6.0 oz (140-170 g)

Wingspan:   18.9-22.8 in (48-58 cm)

Nest:   They nest in burrows that they dig into soft earthen banks, usually adjacent to or directly over water.

Eggs:   6-7, sometimes 5-8. White. Incubation is by both sexes, 22-24 days. Female incubates at night, with male taking over early in morning; male may or may not do less of incubation than female.

Feeding Behavior:   They spend much of their time perched alone along the edges of streams, lakes, and estuaries, looking for small fish. They hunt either by plunging directly from a perch, or by hovering over the water, bill downward, before diving after a fish they’ve spotted. Bones, scales, and other indigestible parts of prey are coughed up later as pellets.

Young:   Both parents feed young, at first giving them partially digested fish, later whole fish. Male may make more feeding visits than female. Young depart from nest 27-29 days after hatching, are fed by parents for about another 3 weeks. 1 brood per year, perhaps sometimes 2 in south.

Range:   Kingfishers live near streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and estuaries, spending winters in areas where the water doesn’t freeze so that they have continual access to their aquatic foods. Some from North America migrate as far south as Central America, West Indies, northern South America.

Brief Description:   Kingfishers are blue-gray above with fine, white spotting on the wings and tail. The underparts are white with a broad, blue breast band. Females also have a broad rusty band on their bellies. Juveniles show irregular rusty spotting in the breast band. With stocky, large-headed birds with a shaggy crest on the top and back of the head and a straight, thick, pointed bill. Their legs are short and their tails are medium length and square-tipped.