The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus included the woodland kingfisher with the binomial name Alcedo senegalensis in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae which was published in 1766.

[2] Linnaeus based his formal description on "Le Grand Martin-Pescher du Sénégal" that the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson had described and illustrated in 1760.

[3] The current genus Halcyon was introduced by the English naturalist and artist William Swainson in 1821, with the woodland kingfisher as the type species.

However, the lores are dark, creating a dark stripe through the eye (the stripe does not extend through the eye in mangrove kingfisher), and the underwing, primaries and secondaries are black with white underwing coverts (there is a black carpal patch on the white coverts in mangrove kingfisher).

This kingfisher is essentially resident within 8° of the equator, but northern and southern populations are migratory, moving into the equatorial zone in the dry season.

Woodland Kingfisher breeding in the Transvaal takes place from November until March, peaking in December and January.