ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE KINGFISHERS
(Family Alcedinida)
The Kingfishers, of which there are fully two hundred species and subspecies now recognized, form a compact and exceedingly interesting group of practically cosmopolitan birds, which Dr. Sharpe well says”are alike remarkable for their brilliant coloration and for the variety of curious and aberrant forms included among their number.”While there is not a little diversity in their appearance, in general, Kingfishers are small or medium-sized birds with compact bodies, very short and weak legs and usually short, rounded, but powerful wings.
The head often seems disproportionately large, due mainly to the relatively very long, stout bill, and the more or less pronounced head-crest.
The wings contain eleven primaries and from eleven to fourteen secondaries, while the commonly very short tail contains twelve feathers, though there is a group of some twenty Old World species in which the number of tail-feathers is reduced to ten, of which the central ones are greatly elongated — often exceeding the length of the body — and usually terminating in elegant racket-shaped expansions.
The feet are undoubtedly the most uniform feature throughout the group, being anisodactyle, that is”unequal-toed,”with the fourth toe united for more than half its length to the third, while the second is also united, but only at the base, with the third. In two genera (Alcyone and Ceyx) the second toe is aborted, hence these birds are only three-toed. Among other characters it may be mentioned that the sternum is two-notched, the furcula U-shaped, and the caeca absent, while the oil-gland is tufted, the contour feathers of the body are without aftershaft, and the young are born naked and helpless.
The colors of the plumage, as already hinted, are often very beautiful, being in general bluish or greenish above and chestnut or red, variegated with white and black below, with the patterns tastefully arranged and the effect often heightened by a bright-colored bill. The sexes may be alike or unlike even in the same genus.
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