The kingfisher is one of Britain’s most brightly coloured and interesting birds.

Statistics
Length: 17-19cm, beak: 4cm.

Physical description
Kingfishers are not much bigger than a house sparrow and are very brightly coloured. They have bright orange underparts with a white bib. The wings are bluish-green and the back, rump and tail are bright blue. The kingfisher’s head is blue with orange marks in front and behind the bird’s eyes, and a white mark on each side of the head. The legs are short and orange in colour. The bright colours are most obvious when the bird is in flight. Males and females are nearly indistinguishable, the female can, however, be distinguished by the orange coloration on the lower part of her bill. The wings and tail are relatively short, and the bill is long and pointed.

Distribution
Common kingfishers are found throughout Europe, except the far north, and also North Africa and Asia.

Habitat
They live around streams, slow-flowing rivers, ponds and lakes.

Diet
They feed on aquatic insects and small fish, such as sticklebacks.

Behaviour
Kingfishers hunt for fish in rivers, lakes and ponds. They perch on a favourite branch near to water and watch out, with their keen eyesight, for a suitable fish. When a fish is spotted, the kingfisher will dive, beak first, into the water. The kingfisher has to rely on memory to predict where the fish will be after it has entered the water and will sometimes return to the surface with a stone in its beak if its prediction was wrong. After it has caught a fish it will fly back to its perch with the fish in its beak. The kingfisher does not eat it immediately and instead will beat the fish against its perch to kill it and then consume it head-first. Kingfishers will regurgitate pellets containing accumulated indigestible material such as fish bones. These are very helpful to scientists who are studying kingfishers as they contain evidence of their diets.

Reproduction
Kingfisher courtship occurs in spring. The male will approach the female with a fish in his beak. He will hold it so that the fish’s head is facing outwards and attempt to feed it to the female. If he is unsuccessful he will simply eat the fish himself. He may have to repeat this feeding behaviour for some time before mating occurs. Kingfishers make burrows in sandy riverbanks. The burrow consists of a horizontal tunnel with a nesting chamber at the end and are usually about a metre long. The female lays about 6 or 7 eggs but sometimes will lay up to 10 eggs. The male and the female share the job of incubating the eggs for about 20 days. During the breeding season, kingfishers can often be seen hunting around the deep pools that form in the bends of rivers. These locations are rich in the young fish that the kingfishers feed to their young.

Conservation status
Kingfishers are very sensitive to cold weather and a particularly harsh winter can seriously reduce kingfisher populations. However, they are not listed by the IUCN Red List.

Voice
A shrill 'tsee' or 'tsee-tsee' call, often repeated rapidly.

Notes
The vivid colours in kingfisher plumage are iridescent. Iridescence is more correctly known as structural colour. Pigment colours are seen when certain wavelengths of light are absorbed and all others are reflected. Structural colour is a result of interference between different wavelengths of light as they are reflected from different layers in the surface of a substance. This is how the rainbow colours are produced on the surface of bubbles. The pigment in kingfisher feathers is actually dark brown but the structural colour produces blues, greens and oranges. The feathers on the bird’s back can seem blue or green depending on the angle they are viewed at. Whereas pigment colours break down after time and exposure to light, structural colour does not.