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Giant Kingfisher
Live sightings near you, the range map, bar charts of when it is seen, and Macaulay Library photos and recordings.
Giant Kingfisher
Megaceryle maxima
The giant kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima) is the largest kingfisher in Africa, where it is a resident breeding bird over most of the continent south of the Sahara Desert, other than the arid southwest.
From the article Giant kingfisher on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
The giant kingfisher is 42–46 cm (16.5–18 in) long, with a large shaggy crest, a large black bill and fine white spots on black upperparts. The male has a chestnut breast band and otherwise white underparts with dark flank barring. The female has a white-spotted black breast band and a chestnut belly. The forest race M. m. gigantea is darker, less spotted above, and more barred below than the nominate race, but the two forms intergrade along the forest edge zone. The call is a loud wak wak wak.
What it does
This large species feeds on crabs, fish, and frogs, caught by diving from a perch.
Wikipedia: “Feeding”
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Megaceryle maxima in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 73010.