Gray-headed Kingfisher

About the Gray-headed Kingfisher

The grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala) is a species of bird in the kingfisher family, Alcedinidae. It is found across large parts of Africa and southern Arabia, from Mauritania through Senegal and the Gambia, east to Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia, and south all the way through to South Africa. It is also found in islands off the African coast such as the Cape Verde islands and Zanzibar.

The first formal description of the grey-headed kingfisher was by the German zoologist Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller in 1776. He coined the binomial name Alcedo leucocephala. The current genus Halcyon was introduced by the English naturalist and artist William Swainson in 1821. The name of the genus is from the classical Greek alkuōn, a mythical bird, generally associated with the kingfisher. The specific epithet leucocephala is from the classical Greek leukos meaning "white" and -kephalos for "-headed".

Five subspecies are recognised: H. l. acteon (Lesson, R, 1830) – Cape Verde Islands H. l. leucocephala (Statius Müller, PL, 1776) – Senegal and Gambia to northwest Somalia, north Tanzania and north DR Congo H. l. semicaerulea (Gmelin, JF, 1788) – south Arabian... Wikipedia →