Green-and-rufous kingfisher


The green-and-rufous kingfisher is a resident breeding bird in the lowlands of the American tropics from southeastern Nicaragua south to southern Brazil.

Taxonomy

The first formal description of the green-and-rufous kingfisher was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the 12th edition of his Systema Naturae. He coined the binomial name Alcedo inda. Linnaeus based his description on George Edwards's "Spotted King's-Fisher" but mistakenly gave the type locality as India occidentali instead of Guiana. Linnaeus's specific name inda is from the Latin Indus for India. The current genus Chloroceryle was erected by Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848.
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2006 found that the green-and-rufous kingfisher was a sister species to the smaller green kingfisher.
Two subspecies are recognised:
The green-and-rufous kingfisher is in length. Males weigh and females. It has the typical kingfisher shape, with a short tail and long bill. The adult male has glossy green upperparts, with white spotting on the wings, and a rufous nape and underparts. The female has a narrow breast band of green-tipped white feathers. Young birds resemble the adult female, but have more spotting on the wings and back. The eyes are dark brown; the legs and feet are dark grey.
The call a chip-chip-chip and some twittering.
The green-and-rufous kingfisher resembles the American pygmy kingfisher, which shares its range, but it is much larger than its relative, and four times as heavy. It lacks the white lower belly shown by the smaller species, and has more white spots on the wings.
The smaller green kingfisher and much larger Amazon kingfisher both have a white belly and collar.

Distribution

Besides the Amazon Basin and the Guianas, also Colombia with most of Venezuela,, a disjunct range of the green-and-rufous kingfisher occurs on the southeast Brazil coast. A wide coastal range extends from central Bahia in the north to Santa Catarina, about ; a localized coastal population occurs north of Bahia in Pernambuco.
The population in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama is also disjunct being west of the Andes cordillera; it is with a coastal population from central coastal Colombia south to central coastal Ecuador.

Behaviour

This kingfisher breeds by rivers and streams in dense lowland forests. The unlined nest is in a horizontal tunnel made in a river bank, and the female lays three to five white eggs.
Green-and-rufous kingfishers are often seen perched on a branch above water before plunging in head first after their fish or crab prey.