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Halcyon kingfishers are mostly large birds with heavy bills. They occur in a variety of habitats, with woodland of various types the preferred environment for most. They are “sit and wait” predators of small ground animals including large insects, rodents, snakes, and frogs, but some will also take fish.
Halcyon leucocephala ( Statius Müller , 1776) The grey-headed kingfisher ( Halcyon leucocephala ) is a species of kingfisher that has a wide distribution from the Cape Verde Islands off the north-west coast of Africa to Mauritania , Senegal and Gambia , east to Ethiopia , Somalia and southern Arabia and south to South Africa .
[4] [5] The present genus Halcyon was introduced by the English naturalist and artist William Swainson in 1821. [6] Halcyon is a name for a bird in Greek mythology generally associated with the kingfisher. The specific epithet smyrnensis is an adjective for the city of Smyrna (now İzmir in Turkey). [7] Five subspecies are recognised: [8]
Brown-winged kingfisher, Sundarbans, West Bengal, India. The tree kingfishers, also called wood kingfishers or Halcyoninae, are the most numerous of the three subfamilies of birds in the kingfisher family, with around 70 species divided into 12 genera, including several species of kookaburras.
The current genus Halcyon was introduced by the English naturalist and artist William Swainson in 1821, with the woodland kingfisher as the type species. [4] Three subspecies are recognised: [5] H. s. fuscopileus Reichenow, 1906 – Sierra Leone to south Nigeria and south to DR Congo and north Angola
The brown-hooded kingfisher (Halcyon albiventris) is a species of bird in the subfamily Halcyoninae, the tree kingfishers. It has a brown head and blackish and turquoise wings. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa, living in woodland, scrubland, forest edges, and also suburban areas.
The genus name Halcyon comes from a bird in Greek legend generally associated with the kingfisher. There was an ancient belief that the halcyon nested on the sea, which it calmed in order to lay its eggs on a floating nest. [5] The species' name chelicuti derives from Chelicut in Ethiopia, the location at which Stanley's type specimen was ...
The bird is today listed under the genus Halcyon, referring to the “Halcyon” bird of Greek legend, which contains 11 species of large, heavy-billed kingfishers. Halcyon kingfishers generally prefer woodlands and primarily consume small terrestrial animals rather than fish. [4]