Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

The ge­o­graphic range of Megac­eryle al­cyon (belted king­fisher) in­cludes all of the land masses within the Neartic re­gion, in­clud­ing north­ern ter­ri­to­ries of Canada, main­land United States, and all of Green­land. The range of belted king­fish­ers ex­tends as far south as Panama. Belted king­fish­ers nest in a slightly smaller range that ex­tends from cen­tral Alaska to south­ern Cal­i­for­nia and the south­ern Yucatán and from cen­tral Labrador and New­found­land to south­ern Florida. (Sib­ley, 2003; Ter­res, 1991)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

The habi­tat of belted king­fish­ers re­quires a body of water, often sur­rounded by for­est, that fea­tures nearly ver­ti­cal ex­posed earth for dig­ging bur­rows in which it nests. Ex­am­ple habi­tats in­clude lake or river banks, but also cuts from roads and rail­ways and pits of sand and gravel. Ac­cept­able bod­ies of water in­clude rivers, ponds, streams, coasts, and lakes. Males seek higher-or­der wa­ter­ways with more herba­ceous plant life than trees, which have less ob­struc­tions that block nest­ing. The wa­ters must be clear and have areas of smooth water so that belted king­fish­ers can de­tect prey. Higher, steeper banks are pre­ferred as a de­fense against both flood­ing and pre­da­tion. Avail­abil­ity of perches is also im­por­tant for belted king­fish­ers as a vi­sual van­tage point for lo­cat­ing prey. Ex­posed banks are es­sen­tial for shel­ter and nest­ing sites. De­sir­able breed­ing habi­tat char­ac­ter­is­tics are the same as de­sir­able non-breed­ing habi­tats. Belted king­fish­ers occur up to 2743 me­ters el­e­va­tion. (Coues, 1874; Fry, 2003; Sib­ley and Mon­roe, 1990)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• terrestrial
• freshwater

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams
• temporary pools
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• riparian

• Range elevation

  0 to 2743 m

  0.00 to 8999.34 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Belted king­fish­ers have pro­por­tion­ally larger heads than most bird species of a sim­i­lar size. The head is fully feath­ered and fea­tures a tall promi­nent crest. The feath­ers on the oc­ciput and nape are slightly taller than the cen­ter of the crest, re­sult­ing in a dou­bly pointed crest. Their bills are heavy and ta­pered to a point pro­vid­ing them with an ad­van­tage when div­ing head-first into the water for prey. Their bill is gen­er­ally longer than their head. The nos­trils are nar­row slits with a broad op­er­cu­lum over­lap­ping. Belted king­fish­ers have rel­a­tively short wings. They have 11 pri­mary feath­ers and 12 to 15 sec­ondary feath­ers. Belted king­fish­ers are a stout birds weigh­ing an av­er­age of 150 grams. Their feet are pro­por­tion­ally small, the tar­sus is short, and the tibia is feath­er­less. The hal­lux is shorter than the inner and outer most toes. The inner toes are fused to­gether, which is known as syn­dactyly. This fu­sion re­sults in what ap­pears to be a sin­gle long flat­tened toe which the bird uses to ex­ca­vate nest­ing cav­i­ties. The out­er­most toe is as long as the fused toes, and at the end of each toe is a sharp pointed claw. (Ridg­way and Fried­man, 1914; Sib­ley, 2003; Ter­res, 1991)

The large head and crest of belted king­fish­ers is a slate-blue. There is a white dot of the lores be­tween the eye and the bill. The neck has a white col­lar that wraps around the neck al­most en­tirely, and below that white col­lar there is a dark band that wraps around the up­per­most por­tion of the breast and con­nects to the slate-blue back. The re­main­ing un­der­side of the male is white. Belted king­fish­ers ex­hibit an in­fre­quent dis­play of avian sex­ual di­mor­phism, where the fe­male is more col­or­ful than male. The fe­male has an­other ru­fous band below the shared dark band which is sep­a­rated by a small white patch. The back of both sexes is the same slate-blue color as the head, but the greater pri­mary coverts dis­play a white wing-patch. On av­er­age, belted king­fish­ers are 32.2 cm tall and have a wingspan of 58.8 cm. (Ridg­way and Fried­man, 1914; Sib­ley and Mon­roe, 1990; Ter­res, 1991)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• female more colorful

• Average mass

  150 g

  5.29 oz

• Average length

  33.2 cm

  13.07 in

• Average wingspan

  58.8 cm

  23.15 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Male belted king­fish­ers es­tab­lish a breed­ing ter­ri­tory that at­tracts fe­males. This typ­i­cally en­com­passes 800 to 1,200 me­ters of shore­line. Belted king­fish­ers es­tab­lish their ter­ri­tory around April, roughly one month be­fore fe­males re­turn from their win­ter lo­ca­tion. If the birds fe­males win­tered in the same re­gion where they will breed, the fe­male will be ac­cepted into the male’s ter­ri­tory in early May. Belted king­fish­ers are sea­son­ally monog­a­mous, and form a pair that works to­gether dur­ing nest­ing. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

Belted king­fish­ers are sea­son­ally monog­a­mous, and form a pair bond that works to­gether dur­ing nest­ing. After courtship is com­plete, belted king­fish­ers ex­ca­vate a nest­ing cav­ity. These are prefer­ably con­structed close to a fish­ing site but have been recorded as much as 1.6 km away. Both males and fe­males are for­mi­da­ble dig­gers and take turns to ex­ca­vate the nest, using both their bills and spe­cially adapted feet. Belted king­fish­ers have two fused toes, which act like a shovel dur­ing dig­ging. Eggs are laid in the back of a tun­nel dug into the bank. This cav­ity in total av­er­ages 15.24 by 25.40 cm. En­trances to the tun­nel are placed be­tween 0.30 and 0.91 me­ters from the top of the bank, and av­er­age 10.16 cm wide and 8.89 cm tall. The tun­nel will often in­cline as depth in­creases. Depths of these tun­nels are typ­i­cally be­tween 0.91 and 1.82 me­ters deep but have been recorded as deep as 4.57 me­ters. Con­struc­tion takes 3 days to 3 three weeks de­pend­ing on sub­strate char­ac­ter­is­tics. Heavy rain events can delay dig­ging for 2 or 3 days. Sbter­ranean ob­struc­tions are avoided or, in some cases, the nest is aban­doned. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Belted king­fish­ers breed once a year be­tween the months of April and July, de­pend­ing in part on their ge­o­graphic lo­ca­tion. In some south­ern states breed­ing events may occur twice in one year. Fe­males lay 5 to 8 oval, glossy white eggs in the back of the nest­ing cav­ity which hatch in 23 or 24 days. Newly ex­ca­vated cav­i­ties re­quire eggs to be laid on the bare dirt. With time or reuse of nest­ing cav­ity, a col­lec­tion of in­di­gestible ma­te­r­ial (bones, scales, ex­oskele­tons) may pad the floor of the nest; feath­ers, grasses, straw, moss, and twigs have been in­fre­quently recorded. At birth, hatch­lings weigh 9 to 13 grams, and young fledge after a min­i­mum of 23 days. It takes ap­prox­i­mately six weeks be­fore the fledg­lings be­come in­de­pen­dent. Both the male and fe­male reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity ap­prox­i­mately one year later. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Belted kingfishers breed once a year in northern states, but have been recorded to breed twice in the southern parts of their breeding range.

• Breeding season

  Breeding season occurs in April and May while pair bond is finishing construction of their nest.

• Range eggs per season

  5 to 8

• Average eggs per season

  7

• Range time to hatching

  23 to 24 days

• Range fledging age

  23 (low) days

• Average time to independence

  6 weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  1 years

The fe­male is the pri­mary in­cu­ba­tor, but both of the adults par­tic­i­pate. The fe­male is re­spon­si­ble for all noc­tur­nal in­cu­ba­tion, and lit­tle is known about the male’s noc­tur­nal roost­ing site. Some males roost in a shal­low dugout near the pri­mary nest­ing cav­ity. When one mate comes to re­lieve the other from in­cu­bat­ing, he or she will perch near to the en­trance and call. At this time the other mate will exit be­fore the caller en­ters. After an in­cu­ba­tion pe­riod of 23 or 24 days, hatch­ing oc­curs within a 12 to 18 hour pe­riod. At­ten­tive brood­ing by the fe­male oc­curs for the first 3 to 4 days and then be­gins to taper off. By the 6th day, brood­ing comes to a com­plete halt. Dur­ing that brood­ing pe­riod the male feeds twice as much as the fe­male. Food pro­vi­sions begin with very small fish or even re­gur­gi­tated food. Later on, cray­fish, tad­poles, and even in­sects are in­cor­po­rated into their diet. Young belted king­fish­ers con­sume their body weight in food each day. Once pro­vi­sions cease and the young de­velop feath­ers, they are forced out of the nest. At this time, adults begin train­ing by drop­ping fish into the water and mak­ing the young re­trieve it. About a week after leav­ing the nest, the young are able to catch cray­fish on their own. Within 2 to 3 weeks, they de­velop pro­fi­cient preda­tory skills over most prey items. Young will move into dense fo­liage near the pre­sent wa­ter­way. At this time adults ob­serve from their reg­u­lar perches, likely to serve as pro­tec­tors. Once the young are about 6 weeks old, they are fully in­de­pen­dent. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

No lit­er­a­ture was found on the lifes­pan of belted king­fish­ers.

Be­hav­ior

Belted king­fish­ers are di­ur­nal birds. They are also con­sid­ered fos­so­r­ial be­cause of their ex­ca­vat­ing be­hav­ior dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son. Most of the ge­o­graphic range has a mild win­ter and can sup­port belted king­fish­ers year round, and mi­gra­tion usu­ally oc­curs based on food source avail­abil­ity. Once belted king­fish­ers es­tab­lish their ter­ri­tory, they are rel­a­tively con­fined to that lo­ca­tion. Out­side of the breed­ing sea­son, the ter­ri­tory of a belted king­fisher can be 300 to 500 me­ters of shore­line. Lit­tle is known about their roost­ing habits out­side of the breed­ing sea­son, but they may uti­lize shal­low hol­lows in the bank or roost in a tree within their hunt­ing ground vicin­ity. Within their es­tab­lished ter­ri­tory, belted king­fish­ers they move up and down the river above the water and below the canopy, search­ing for food. They perch on fish­ing posts, usu­ally un­ob­structed perches over the water from which they spot prey. If a po­ten­tial threat such as a bird, human, or preda­tor en­ters that ter­ri­tory, belted king­fish­ers boldly pur­sue the in­truder and and vo­cal­ize loudly until the threat evac­u­ates. Their call is long, loud, and chat­ter­ing. Wing beats can at times ap­pear un­me­thod­i­cal. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Dewey, 1985; Ter­res, 1991)

• Key Behaviors
• fossorial
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• migratory
• sedentary
• solitary
• territorial

• Range territory size

  300 to 500 m^2

Home Range

The non-breed­ing ter­ri­tory of belted king­fish­ers is 300 to 500 me­ters of shore­line. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Ter­res, 1991)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Belted king­fish­ers use sight as their pri­mary means of per­cep­tion. Their eyes have two fovea which give them the ad­van­tage of pre­cise depth per­cep­tion. Oils within their eyes im­prove their abil­ity to see color. Their eyes are pro­tected by a nic­ti­tat­ing mem­brane when div­ing for fish. This mem­brane does im­pede their vi­sion so their sense of touch be­comes in­creas­ingly im­por­tant after the bird has en­tered the water. They close their bill when they feel con­tact with a prey item. All king­fish­ers are ex­cep­tion­ally vocal. Their calls are used for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and claim­ing ter­ri­tory. Belted king­fish­ers ex­hibit at least six dif­fer­ent calls which they com­bine in dif­fer­ent ways to ex­press dif­fer­ent mes­sages. The call most com­monly heard by the ca­sual ob­server is a call used for ter­ri­tory de­lin­eation, which is a long, high-pitched chat­ter or rat­tle. (Fry, 2003; Sib­ley, 2003; Ter­res, 1991; Woodall, 2001)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Belted king­fish­ers are pri­mar­ily op­por­tunis­tic car­ni­vores. They may also eat berries when ideal prey is un­avail­able. Hunt­ing sites in­clude rivers, streams, small lakes, ponds, and coastal wa­ters. Lakes must be small be­cause wave ac­tion makes sight­ing prey dif­fi­cult. Their pre­ferred prey is fish, and then cray­fish. Belted king­fish­ers eat fish be­tween 4 and 14 cm in length, but have been recorded con­sum­ing fish as long as 17.8 cm. Meth­ods of hunt­ing in­clude still hunt­ing as well as ac­tive hunt­ing. The still hunt­ing method, which is more en­ergy ef­fi­cient, in­volves perch­ing on an un­ob­structed and usu­ally dead limb of a tree over­look­ing the feed­ing site. When prey is spot­ted, they dive off the branch to­ward the water at an angle, en­ter­ing head first. While ac­tive hunt­ing, belted king­fish­ers hover around 90.14 me­ters from the sur­face of the water. Once prey is spot­ted, they ei­ther dive straight down or in a spi­ral­ing mo­tion. Shal­low, head­first dives fre­quently re­sult in an in­com­plete sub­mer­sion of the bird. Both of these meth­ods re­quire high water clar­ity and a shal­low depth. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Fry and Fry, 2010; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

Once a prey item has been caught with the bill, they re­turn to the scout­ing perch. At this point they im­mo­bi­lize the prey by strik­ing it against the limb of the tree or even stab­bing the prey with their bill. Then, belted king­fish­ers toss the prey into the air and con­sume it head first. If the fish is too large, they leave the fish pro­trud­ing from its beak, and allow di­ges­tive en­zymes to break down the first por­tion of the fish be­fore swal­low­ing the re­main­der. Sim­i­lar to an owl, in­di­gestible ma­te­r­ial such as bones and scales are dis­carded orally in the form of a pel­let. When water is highly tur­bid, fish are too en­er­get­i­cally ex­pen­sive to pur­sue, and cray­fish be­come the pri­mary prey item. Belted king­fish­ers also hunt cray­fish when out-com­peted by mer­gansers. In colder water, the diet of belted king­fish­ers in­cludes sculpins and trout. In warmer water, they prey on slower-mov­ing fish in­clud­ing suck­ers, stick­le­backs, perch, and pike. Where fish are un­avail­able, belted king­fish­ers con­sume lar­val am­phib­ians. Other pos­si­ble prey items in­clude but­ter­flies and moths, snakes, mol­lusks, tur­tles, ju­ve­nile birds, small mam­mals and al­most any other in­sect. In­ver­te­brates such as cad­dis­flies are also are found in their stom­achs. How­ever, re­searchers spec­u­late that prey fish con­sume the cad­dis­fly rather than belted king­fish­ers. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Fry and Fry, 2010; Sandi­lands, 2005; Ter­res, 1991)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore

• Animal Foods
• birds
• mammals
• amphibians
• reptiles
• fish
• insects
• mollusks
• aquatic crustaceans

• Plant Foods
• fruit

Pre­da­tion

Belted king­fish­ers have few nat­ural preda­tors, which may in­clude ac­cip­iters and fal­cons, in­clud­ing Cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and pere­grine fal­cons. When pur­sued by these birds, belted king­fish­ers dive under the water re­peat­edly until the preda­tor ceases pur­suit. The light un­der­side and darker back of the king­fisher is a cam­ou­flage adap­ta­tion. (Ben­net and Tiner, 2003; Dewey, 1985; Sib­ley, 2003; Ter­res, 1991)

• Known Predators

  • Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii)
  • sharp-shinned hawks (Accipiter striatus)
  • peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Belted king­fish­ers are top preda­tors in both ma­rine and fresh­wa­ter aquatic food webs. They do not have any mu­tu­al­is­tic in­traspecies in­ter­ac­tion or par­a­sitize, but serve as a pri­mary host for trema­todes (Cras­siphiala bul­boglossa). (Combes, 2001)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Belted king­fish­ers are ap­pre­ci­ated by bird en­thu­si­asts.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Belted king­fish­ers some­times prey on fin­ger­lings of fish hatch­eries. (Hamas, 1994)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Belted king­fish­ers are not en­dan­gered and pop­u­la­tions ap­pear sta­ble through­out their range. (Hamas, 1994)

• IUCN Red List

  No special status
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  No special status
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Belted king­fish­ers were pre­vi­ously known by the sci­en­tific name Ceryle al­cyon.

Con­trib­u­tors

John Sch­ablein (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Kier­sten Newtoff (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Melissa Whistle­man (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Cather­ine Kent (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

Ben­net, D., T. Tiner. 2003. The Wild Woods Guide: From Min­nesota to Maine, the Na­ture and Lore of the Great North Woods. New York: Harper Collins.

Carter, A., N. Thomas, B. Hunter. 2009. Par­a­sitic Dis­eases of Wild Birds. New Jer­sey: John Wiley & Sons.

Combes, C. 2001. Par­a­sitism: The Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion of In­ti­mate In­ter­ac­tions. Chicago: Uni­ver­sity of Chicago.

Coues, E. 1874. Birds of the North­west: A Hand-book of the Or­nithol­ogy of the Re­gion Drained By the Mis­souri River and Its Trib­u­taries. Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity: Govt. Print. Off..

Dewey, J. 1985. Birds of the Great Basin: A Nat­ural His­tory. Uni­ver­sity of Nevada: Uni­ver­sity of Nevada Press.

Fry, C. 2003. The New En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Birds. New York: Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press.

Fry, H., K. Fry. 2010. King­fish­ers, Bee-eaters and Rollers. Lon­don: A&C Black.

Hamas, M. 1994. Belted King­fisher: Ceryle Al­cyon. Philade­phia, PA USA: Amer­i­can Or­nithol­o­gist' Union.

Har­ri­son, H. 1998. A Field Guide to the Birds' Nests: United States East of the Mis­sis­sippi River. New York: Houghton Mif­flin Har­court.

Ridg­way, R., H. Fried­man. 1914. The Birds of North and Mid­dle Amer­ica. Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan: Govt. Print. Off.

Sandi­lands, A. 2005. Birds of On­tario: Habi­tat Re­quire­ments, Lim­it­ing Fac­tors, and Sta­tus. Van­cou­ver, B.C.: UBC Press.

Se­lendy, J. 2011. Water and San­i­ta­tion Re­lated Dis­eases and the En­vi­ron­ment: Chal­lenges, In­ter­ven­tions and Pre­ven­tive Mea­sures. New Jer­sey: John Wiley & Sons.

Sib­ley, C., B. Mon­roe. 1990. Dis­tri­b­u­tion and Tax­on­omy of Birds of the World. New Haven, Con­necti­cut: Yale Uni­ver­sity Press.

Sib­ley, D. 2003. The Sib­ley Field Guide To Birds of East­ern North Amer­ica. New York: Al­fred A. Knopf.

Ter­res, J. 1991. The Audubon So­ci­ety En­cy­lo­pe­dia of North Amer­i­can Birds. New York: Wings Books.

Ul­rich, T. 1984. Birds of the North­ern Rock­ies. Mis­soula, Mon­tana: Moun­tain Press Pub­lish­ing.

Wells, D. 2002. One Hun­dred Birds and How They Got Their Names. Chapel Hill: Al­go­nquin Books.

Woodall, P. 2001. Fam­ily Al­ce­dinidae (King­fish­ers). Pp. 130-187 in J del­Hoyo, A El­liot, J Sar­gatal, eds. The Hand­book of the Birds of the World, Vol. 6, Lynx Edi­tion. Barcelona: Lynx.