Melidora macrorrhina
Silhouette: Steven Traver · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The hook-billed kingfisher (Melidora macrorrhina) is a species of kingfisher in the subfamily Halcyoninae that is resident in the lowland forested areas of New Guinea and some of the nearby islands. It is the only member of the genus Melidora.
The first formal description of the hook-billed kingfisher was by the French surgeon and naturalist René Lesson in 1827 under the binomial name Dacelo macrorrhina. The hook-billed kingfisher is now the only species placed within the genus Melidora which was introduced by Lesson in 1830. The name of the genus probably comes from the classical Greek mēlis for "yellow" and doru for "spear". The specific epithet macrorrhina is from the classical Greek makros for "long" and rhis for "nose".
There are three subspecies: It has a long, white stripe below its eyes. Its underside is white... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raja Ampat | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Hook-billed Kingfisher sighting in Raja Ampat on a given day, based on 296 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 44th most-seen of the 200 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July and November
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Hook-billed Kingfisher in Raja Ampat on a given day, against about 10% in April and December–February, the lowest months.
Between 10 pm and 1 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Hook-billed Kingfisher sightings with a recorded time, and about half of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is seen both by day and at night.
Only Raja Ampat, in our data
Raja Ampat is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Hook-billed Kingfisher sightings: about 30% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Alcedinidae
The closest relatives of the Hook-billed Kingfisher that you can see in Raja Ampat (family Alcedinidae, Kingfishers) are Beach Kingfisher (about 50%), Rufous-bellied Kookaburra (about 50%) and Common Paradise-Kingfisher (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Hook-billed Kingfisher is recorded against all the birds logged in Raja Ampat (296 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.
