A small brilliantly-coloured bird of the water-side, a feeder on fish, which it catches by plunging from some branch, or other perch, headlong into the water. It carries its catch, held crosswise in the bill, to a perch and, after adjusting it so that the fish is pointing inwards, swallows it whole. Water insects are also eaten.
The nest is made at the end of a tunnel which the bird excavates in the banks of streams, and the only nest material is that of tiny fish bones. |