Chloroceryle americana
Silhouette: Steven Traver · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The green kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana) is a species of "water kingfisher" in the subfamily Cerylinae of the family Alcedinidae. It is found from southern Texas in the United States south through Central America, and in every mainland South American country except Chile.
The green kingfisher was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other kingfishers in the genus Alcedo and coined the binomial name Alcedo americana. Gmelin based his description on "Le martin-pêcheur vert et blanc" from Cayenne that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon and also the "white and green kingfisher" that had been described in 1782 by the English ornithologist John Latham. The green kingfisher is now placed in the genus Chloroceryle that was introduced in 1848 by Johann Jakob Kaup.
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2006 found that the green kingfisher is a sister species to the larger green-and-rufous kingfisher (C. inda). Five subspecies are recognized: Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monterrey | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 2 | Guayaquil | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 3 | Belém | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | João Pessoa | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Barranquilla | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 7 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 8 | León | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 9 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 10 | Belo Horizonte | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Green Kingfisher sighting in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, based on 757 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 54th most-seen of the 348 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.
January, March–April and June
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Green Kingfisher in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, against about 20% in February, May and July–December, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Green Kingfisher sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 67
Of the 67 parks where we can rate Green Kingfisher sightings, Tortuguero National Park ranks 6th at about 20%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 50%), Carara National Park (Costa Rica, about 30%) and Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve (Mexico, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Chloroceryle
The closest relatives of the Green Kingfisher that you can see in Tortuguero National Park (genus Chloroceryle, American Green Kingfishers) are Amazon Kingfisher (about 40%) and American Pygmy Kingfisher (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Green Kingfisher is recorded against all the birds logged in Tortuguero National Park (757 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.
