The feature image is female Belted Kingfisher spotted along one of the nature drives at Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge in Titusville, Florida.
Belted Kingfisher
The Belted Kingfisher is a large stocky fish-eating bird with a high pitched call. They are blue-gray and white, however the female has a chestnut colored band around the belly and along the flanks that are not evident in the male. One of a few birds which the female has more color than the male. These kingfishers can be seen throughout North America, Central America and in parts of South America. Sightings are limited in the UK and Iceland.
This is my first time participating in April Blogging from A-Z Challenge. As a birder and photographer, I will be sharing a new bird with you every day. I host a weekly photo challenge called Bird Weekly and would love for you to stop by anytime. Join in if that is your thing too.
Our Eyes Open 
Comments
11 responses to “A-Z Challenge – K is for Kingfisher”
Like most new world species, this is new to me. A beautiful bird, which reminded me of our pied kingfishers.
Interesting that the female is not more cryptic. When the female is drab, the nest is tended largely by her, and the colouring is a bit of camouflage. Could the colour of the female indicate that the nests of the belted kingfisher are inaccessible to predators, so the female need not be camouflaged? Or does it indicate that the male takes on the bulk of the job of the feeding of chicks? Since colours of birds are adaptive, unusual colours have something to do with unusual life styles.
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You had a great look at this one and made a wonderful image of it too! They’re so skittish here!
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Yes they are! Hard to photograph. In all the years we’ve been birding, I only have 3 good photos. 🙂
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3 is great! There are some birds I’m so thankful to have just one good one of! 😀
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I know what you mean there too. 😊
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We used to kingfishers almost daily while volunteering atPahranagat NWR. It has been a while since I have seen one. No pictures were taken.
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They are hard to capture. I don’t have many good ones. They usually don’t stay still long enough. 🙂
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So different to my Kingfishers 🙂 🙂
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Did you do Bird Weekly last week? I doing the round up for tomorrow and I didn’t see anything from you. You almost always post. Just want to make sure. 🙂
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I don’t think I did sorry, You and Frank having a holiday confused me 😀
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Yeah, it wasn’t much of one. The weather was uncooperating. You’ve still got time if you want to submit one. The theme is birds you saw in the last two weeks. I missed everyone the week I was away. 🙂
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