Coraciiform birds tend to perch in trees and shrubs when at rest. Some favour exposed perches on which they are consp.... ground feed

Some species, such as the kingfishers, use little bipedal locomotion; others ( e.g., some hornbills) hop, walk, or scramble in the treetops, creep along branches (wood hoopoes), or walk or hop on the ground (hoopoe, other hornbills). Some families (Upupidae and Leptosomatidae) contain only one species; others are large and predictably diverse e.g., the hornbills (Bucerotidae), with 45 species, and the kingfishers (Alcedinidae), with about 90 species. Each family or group of families tends to have a characteristic pattern of feeding behaviour, and the foraging patterns fall into four categories, or feeding niches: (1) watchful waiting on a perch, (2) aerial i.e., spending much time on the wing, (3) searching on foot among branches of trees, and (4) walking on the ground. When they see their prey on a leaf, a branch, the ground, or even in water, they fly out with swift, direct flight, seize the prey with the bill, and return to the perch. Rollers spend more time perched, but ! they too are graceful in flight and capture much of their food by hawking or by darting down to the ground. The wood hoopoes have weak flight, and they do not fly much; they fly chiefly from one tree or clump of trees to the next, climbing about the trunks and branches of trees and lianas in acrobatic poses as they seek insects in crevices and on the bark surface. Walking on the ground is the usual mode of feeding for the common hoopoe ( Upupa ), the ground rollers, and for a few hornbills. The ground rollers, most of which are birds of the deep forest, also feed on the ground on food similar to that of the hoopoe. ground feed