Kotare Sacred Kingfisher, New Zealand Kingfisher.

Kingfishers are often seen perched on power lines, posts, fences and bare branches. They wait for their prey to appear on the ground. The bird suddenly darts with a direct descending flight, snatches its prey - worms, cicadas, small birds such as Silvereyes, insects, mice, or lizards - (usually without landing), and flies straight back to its perch with its prey cross-wise in its beak. It dives for tadpoles, small fish and freshwater crayfish. Food is swallowed whole, and indigestible parts regurgitated later as pellets. Its nesting sites are in banks and rotting trees alongside streams, rivers, tidal estuaries and swamps. A clutch of 5 broad, white eggs are laid between September and January, and incubated for about 19 days, mostly by the female, and fledge at 26 days old. Both adults fee... read mored the young, and 2 or 3 chicks usually survive, staying with the adults for several weeks. They're a pretty bird with deep green, ultramarine and cobalt feathers, and they have a distinctive call.