Kingfishers are a group of small to medium sized brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species being found in the Old World and Australasia. The group is treated either as a single family, Alcedinidae, or as a suborder Alcedines containing three families, Alcedinidae (river kingfishers), Halcyonidae (tree kingfishers), and Cerylidae (water kingfishers). There are roughly 90 species of kingfisher. All have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails. Most species have bright plumage with little differences between the sexes. Most species are tropical in distribution, and a slight majority are found only in forests. They consume a wide range of prey as well as fish, usually caught by swooping down from a perch. Like other members of their order they nest in cavities, usually tunnels dug into the natural or artificial banks in the ground. A few species, principally insular forms, are threatened with extinction.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingfisher
One of my favourite animals is the laughing kookaburra, which is actually a type of tree kingfisher, and is the heaviest species of all the kingfishers! However, I also quite like kingfishers in general. I find that they have quite pretty colours and/or patterns in their plumage, and their body shape is very interesting (and slightly amusing, for some reason) to me. C:
