White-throated Kingfisher
Halcyon smyrnensis
Turquoise and chestnut, often far from any water.
Seen atBarechhina ·Jageshwar
Opens recordings on xeno-canto, the open bird-sound archive.
What the hills call it
Kilkila
/ kil·ki·laa /किलकिला
White-throated Kingfisher — Turquoise and chestnut, often far from any water.
Field notes
- Order
- Coraciiformes
- Family
- Alcedinidae · Kingfishers
- Genus
- Halcyon
- Length
- 27–28 cm
- Weight
- 60–100 g
- At Kunja
- Resident — here all year round
- Conservation
- Least Concern
How to know it
A big, brilliant kingfisher — turquoise-blue back and wings, chestnut head and belly, a gleaming white throat and a heavy red bill. Often far from water.
What it eats
A wide hunter — fish, frogs, lizards, large insects, even small birds and mice — dropped onto from a perch.
Where & when to spot it
On wires, posts and bare branches over fields, gardens and ditches as much as over water, with a loud, laughing call.
Nesting & mating
Tunnels into an earth-bank or cutting; four to seven white eggs in a chamber at the end.
In the lens
White-throated Kingfisher, photographed at Barechhina
Photographs by Manohar Negi · mnegi.com — tap any photo to view it full
More to spot
PasseridaeHouse Sparrow
Passer domesticus
Kunja
MuscicapidaeBlue Whistling Thrush
Myophonus caeruleus
Kunja
SturnidaeCommon Myna
Acridotheres tristis
Kunja
HirundinidaeRed-rumped Swallow
Cecropis daurica
Kunja
PycnonotidaeHimalayan Bulbul
Pycnonotus leucogenys
Kunja
MegalaimidaeGreat Barbet
Psilopogon virens
Kunja