Common Kingfisher

How to identify

Field marks

1. A single orange stripe between eye and ear-coverts
2. A single bright jewel-blue stripe down back
3. Head deep blue-green with bright blue markings; throat white; breast and belly orange
4. Bill large and pointed; legs and feet short, orange-red to red

Male, female and young

Male has an all-black bill; female has a black upper mandible and red lower mandible; juvenile is duller, with a slight brown tinge.

Voice

Has no song; most calls are whistles with a trill; calls in flight are short and sharp, repeated two or three times.

Similar species

Blyth's Kingfisher

Common Kingfisher is smaller and has an orange stripe between eye and ear-coverts, which Blyth's Kingfisher lacks.

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Immature Blue-eared Kingfisher also has this orange stripe between eye and ear-coverts; details of head markings are needed to distinguish them.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: September–December · Most records: China, India, Spain

Common Kingfisher has been recorded at 3,413 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 98 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Txingudi – PlaiaundiSpain4,047 records
2. Mai Po Nature ReserveHong Kong (China)3,319 records
3. Bharatpur – Keoladeo Ghana NPIndia2,802 records

Countries and regions with the most records

ChinaIndiaSpainUnited KingdomPortugalIsraelThailandJapan

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), also known as the Eurasian kingfisher and river kingfisher, is a small kingfisher with seven subspecies recognized within its wide distribution across Eurasia and North Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but migrates from areas where rivers freeze in winter.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

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