"What color is the eye?"
"Brown."
"And the feet?"
"Red."
"And the nails?"
"Black."
She thanked me prettily. I tried to tell her about some of the other kingfishers, but she said no, she had enough, and hung up.
I sighed and thought regretfully of all the other things I had ready to tell her.
In the United States we think of the kingfisher as the belted kingfisher, larger than a jay, with a tousled crest and a voice like a watchman's rattle. But there are other species farther south in the Americas, and in the Old World there are still more. The tropics are their home. Only one species reaches Northern United States, and only one reaches Britain. But in New Guinea, for instance, there are about twenty-four of the ninety or so known kinds of kingfishers; the smallest tiny as a warbler, the largest nearly crow size.
Kingfishers, we call them, but many live on the dry land, and instead of catching fish catch insects or other tiny animals from the ground. One large species, with a broad shovel-like bill, is even reputed to dig in the earth to get its food of earthworms.