Fish beware!

Pretty bird and fearsome fisher! The special design perfected over millennia allows this bird to live quietly in rest with occasional, brief, high speed action. The dagger‑like bill leading its streamlined body cuts through air and water, minimally slowed by drag.

The giant kingfisher, Megaceryle maxima, fishes and hunts almost everywhere in South Africa where water is home to fish, frogs and crabs. The same happens through much of Africa. It is Africa’s largest kingfisher. These birds live near rivers, estuaries, lakes, ponds, wooded streams and the sea. Hovering in the hunt happens more over the sea.

The sexes have only minor differences in chest and back feathers, the female likely to be heavier. The black‑and‑white speckles function as camouflage to vigilant fish. Speed does the rest. Refraction of the light and surface glare contribute to the bird sometimes winning, at other times the fish.

Solitary or sometimes in pairs, they occasionally call in flight. A breeding pair tunnels in earth banks for preparing a nest. Such tunnels may be from less than 1 m to more than 8 m long. When the about four glossy white eggs hatch, the chicks are fed by both parents (Maclean, 1993).