Common Kingfisher

How to recognise it

• Blue-green upperparts, warm orange underparts and cheek patch, chalk-white throat and neck-side patch
• Compact body, large head, short tail, red feet and long, all-black, dagger-shaped bill
• In the breeding season the female has an orange-red base to the lower mandible
• Fast, straight flight low over water, when the pale blue back shows best

Call and song

The call is often heard in flight: a short, sharp whistled zii or chee, sometimes zii-ti. When excited it repeats the call in short series, which can turn into a harder shrit-it-it.

Where and when

It is resident in Sweden and listed as Near Threatened on the 2025 Red List. Its Swedish breeding core is Östergötland, Småland and Skåne. In winter it avoids the ice and is seen more often at river mouths nearer the coast. It is reported most in December and January, and its share of all bird reports is highest in Östergötland, Skåne and Västmanland.

Food and behaviour

It sits upright and often very still while watching for fish, which it catches by diving straight down. Typical prey are minnow, stickleback, small roach and trout, and it also takes aquatic insects and, in winter, crustaceans. It must eat about 60 percent of its body weight every day and lives alone for most of the year.