Kingfisher - Alcedo atthis

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Picture ©2001, - Fishing in Wales

Found over most of Europe inhabiting stretches of clean water with steep banks, fish stocked rivers and flooded gravel pits their presence being an indicatior of the good water quality, they are scarce in Scotland. Nests in an excavated hole or burrow about 1m (3ft) long above the water line in a sandy bank. Highly coloured with an orange chest and iridescent blue back, redish orange feet, length to 19cm. Males ♂ and females ♀ are very simmilar and almost identical in appearance, the female ♀ having a reddish couloured lower bill.

Broods twice in a year producing a clutch of 6 to 8 white eggs on a nest of dried fish bones, the young hatch in about 3 weeks. Feed on small fish and aquatic insects caught by diving into the water usually from a favourite overhanging branch. Fish are swallowed whole head first, sometimes having been stunned first by beating the fish's head on a branch.

The Kingfisher, A. atthis is an Amber list species of medium conservation concern and unfavourable conservation status in Europe.

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