Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

One of the most colourful European birds with greenish-blue coloration on the top of the body and a white and brownish bottom. Despite its bright plumage, however, it is not easy to spot when it sits motionless on a branch lying in wait for pray. The basis of the diet of the kingfisher are small fish that it hunts by thrusting itself at high speed from the air into the water. The kingfisher nests on steep bank slopes of clean rivers, where it digs horizontal burrows of up to 1 m, ending with a nest chamber. The burrow is located about half a meter above the water, so that it is not flooded and that predators do not have easy access to it. This species is monogamous. Outside of the reproductive season it lives alone moving in the winter from breeding grounds to spots of frozen-over water. Some kingfishers migrate to the west or the south and all of a sudden appear in places where they have not been seen before (which may suggest that the bird breeds in the winter).