Kingfisher

Kingfishers area unit a gaggle of tiny to medium-sized, bright coloured birds within the Coraciiformes.The cluster is treated either as one family, the Alcedinidae, or as a taxonomic group Alcedines containing 3 families, Alcedinidae (river kingfishers) Roughly ninety species of kingfishers area unit represented. All have massive heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and short tails. Most species have bright body covering with few variations between the sexes. Most species area unit tropical in distribution, and a small majority area unit found solely in forests. They consume a large vary of prey, furthermore as fish, sometimes caught by swooping down from a perch. whereas kingfishers area unit sometimes thought to measure close to rivers and eat fish, most species live aloof from water and eat tiny invertebrates. Like different members of their order, they nest in cavities, sometimes tunnels mammary gland into the natural or artificial banks within the ground. 1 / 4 of all kingfishers nest in noncurrent insect nests. some species, primarily insular forms, area unit vulnerable with extinction. In Britain, the word "kingfisher" usually refers to the common coraciiform bird.The smallest species of coraciiform bird is that the African dwarf coraciiform bird (Ispidina lecontei), that averages ten.4 g (0.37 oz) in weight and ten cm (3.9 in) long. the most important overall is that the big coraciiform bird (Megaceryle maxima), at a mean of 355 g (12.5 oz) and forty five cm (18 in). However, the acquainted Australian coraciiform bird called the happy laughing jackass (Dacelo novaeguineae) could also be the heaviest species, since people olympian 450 g (0.99 lb) don't seem to be rare.

The body covering of most kingfishers is bright, with inexperienced and blue being the foremost common colors. The brightness of the colors is neither the merchandise of opalescence (except within the yankee kingfishers) or pigments, however is instead caused by the structure of the feathers, that causes scattering of blue light-weight (the Tyndall effect).[3] In most species, no raw variations between the sexes exist; once variations occur, they're quite tiny (less than 10%).