Birdpass
English
Common Kingfisher

Common Kingfisher

Alcedo atthis

Identify the Common Kingfisher by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

The Common Kingfisher is a small, brilliant blue-and-orange bird widespread across Europe, Asia and North Africa, always tied to clear waters. It stays year-round where waters remain ice-free but leaves areas that freeze. A nimble hunter, it plunges from a perch or a brief hover to catch small fish and nests at the end of a tunnel dug into a riverbank.

Did you know?

  • The mythical “halcyon” of ancient Greece is thought to be the kingfisher.
  • A bird speeding away shows an electric-blue flash down its back as it skims over the water.

Voice

Flight call

About the species

Identification

A compact bird with a relatively large head and a long, dark, pointed bill. The back is brilliant metallic blue-green; the underparts and ear patches are orange-chestnut; the throat and neck patches are white; the short legs are orange. The male's bill is all dark, while the female has an orange-red lower mandible. So colourful and distinctive that it is hard to confuse with any other bird in the region.

Family

Alcedinidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

blue, orange, white, green, black

About the habitat

Clear, slow-flowing streams, rivers and lakes with overhanging perches and steep banks for nesting; in winter also estuaries, harbours and rocky shores.

Diet

Mainly small fish, also aquatic insects and other invertebrates, taken by plunge-diving; it often beats a fish against a branch and flips it to swallow head-first.

Behaviour

Sits low over water on branches or posts and flies fast and low along streams with whirring wings, flashing electric blue. It has no true song; the call is a sharp, high whistle. It excavates a nesting tunnel in a sandy or earthy bank and lays glossy white eggs in a chamber at the end.

Sources

Photo: Tony Wood, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alcedo atthis -England-8 (cropped).jpg

Sound: Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alcedo_atthis_-_Common_Kingfisher_XC476785.mp3

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_kingfisher

See also