Todiramphus sanctus
Silhouette: Steven Traver · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The sacred kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus) is a medium-sized woodland kingfisher that occurs in mangroves, woodlands, forests and river valleys in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the western Pacific. The binomial name Halcyon sanctus was introduced by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827 who described a sacred kingfisher zoological specimen from New Holland, Australia. Vigors and Horsfield compare it with Alcedo sacra described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788. Gmelin in turn based his description on John Latham's "Sacred King's Fisher" published in 1782. Latham described several varieties, one of which was illustrated in Arthur Phillip's The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay published in 1789. The genus Halcyon was split and the sacred kingfisher was placed in the genus Todiramphus that had been erected by the French surgeon and naturalist René Lesson in 1827. The generic name is derived from the genus Todus (Brisson, 1760), 'tody' (a West Indian insectivorous bird) and Ancient Greek rhamphos (ῥάμφος), 'bill'. The specific epithet is the Latin sanctus 'sacred'.
Five subspecies are recognised: Wikipedia →
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australia Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Alice Springs Desert Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 3 | Cleland Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 4 | Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 5 | Auckland Zoo | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 6 | Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 7 | Willowbank Wildlife Reserve | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 8 | Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 9 | Rockhampton Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 10 | Wagga Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 11 | Ōtorohanga Kiwi House | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 12 | Cairns Zoom and Wildlife Dome | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 13 | Caversham Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Sacred Kingfisher sighting in Kakadu National Park on a given day, based on 358 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 66th most-seen of the 186 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April–May and November
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Sacred Kingfisher in Kakadu National Park on a given day, against about 10% in December and January, the lowest months. Those are among Kakadu National Park's driest months, with about 60 mm of rain a month against 350 mm in January. February has too few records to rate.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Sacred Kingfisher sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 26
Of the 26 parks where we can rate Sacred Kingfisher sightings, Kakadu National Park ranks 8th at about 20%. The best odds are in Egmont National Park (New Zealand, about 40%), Daintree National Park (Australia, about 40%) and Rottnest Island (Australia, about 30%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Sacred Kingfisher is recorded against all the birds logged in Kakadu National Park (358 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
