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Transcript:
This is BirdNote.
Kingfishers. They fish. Right? The clue鈥檚 in the name. Over most of the waters of North America, it鈥檚 the Belted Kingfisher. Europe鈥檚 single species is the small, brilliant blue, much beloved Common Kingfisher.
But when you hit tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and 鈥 especially 鈥 the vicinity of Australia, it鈥檚 clear that despite the group name, most of the roughly 90 species of kingfishers don鈥檛 鈥渇ish.鈥 They hunt in woodlands, where the smaller ones, like the four-inch pygmy kingfisher, will eat grasshoppers and centipedes, and the larger ones will take frogs, reptiles, small mammals, and even snakes.
Yup. Australia鈥檚 Laughing Kookaburra is a member of the kingfisher family. And it鈥檚 been known to dispatch snakes up to three feet in length.
No matter whether the kingfisher you see is wrangling a snake or plunging for a fish, you鈥檒l be looking at a member of one of the world鈥檚 most charismatic groups of birds.
For BirdNote, I'm Michael Stein.
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Credits:
Written by Bob Sundstrom
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Dominic Black
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Belted Kingfisher [100770] recorded by W L Hershberger. Common Kingfisher [56643]recorded by Scott Connop. Laughing Kookaburra [6582] recorded by F N Robinson
BirdNote鈥檚 theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
漏 2015 Tune In to Nature.org
July 2017 ID #: kingfisher-02-2015-07-20 kingfisher-02