kingfisher

The kingfisher, with its brilliantly coloured plumage and daggerlike beak, is unmistakeable. It is found in Europe, North Africa to Asia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. When hunting, it perches on a branch overhanging a stream or lake, watching for prey, or it flies low over the water, perhaps hovering for a few seconds before diving.

Because of its loud laughing call, this bird is often called the laughing kookaburra or even laughing jackass. It is the largest member of the kingfisher family and is found in the lightly wooded or open country of Australia where it feeds largely on insects and other small creatures including rodents and reptiles.

Any of a group of heavy-billed birds found near streams, ponds, and coastal areas around the world. The head is exceptionally large, and the long, angular bill is keeled; the tail and wings are relatively short, and the legs very short, with short toes. Kingfishers plunge-dive for fish and aquatic insects. The nest is usually a burrow in a riverbank. (Family Alcedinidae, order Coraciiformes.)

There are 88 species of kingfisher, the largest being the Australian kookaburra. The Alcedinidae are sometimes divided into the subfamilies Daceloninae, Alcedininae, and Cerylinae.

The North American belted kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon) is about 33 cm/13 in long, slate grey and white (the female has a rust-coloured band on the belly), and crested in both sexes.

Kingfisher

City and administrative headquarters of Kingfisher County, central Oklahoma, 64 km/40 mi northwest of Oklahoma City; population (1990) 4,100. Situated in a grain- and livestock-producing region, it has an enormous wheat market. Agricultural goods are processed and oil is refined here.

Kingfisher was founded during the 1889 land rush and was a stagecoach station and a stop on the Chisholm Trail.