Custom Search

Friday, October 15, 2010

Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon)

I mentioned the other day when I posted the photo of the Downy Woodpecker that I had been a stalking him for a long time. Here is another difficult-to-photograph bird that shares the same part of the West Bay Walkway, the Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon). I see this bird almost every time I am down there but it is usually so busy fishing that I generally end up with a series of shots like this. He (or she, I'm not sure) takes off from his perch (left above), then hovers about 20 feet above the water for a few seconds, then dives (right below), usually emerging with a little fish wiggling in that powerful beak, and skims away just above the surface to another perch.

3 comments:

Mike Laplante said...

Our stellar jay I mentioned a couple of days ago:
http://alternatecafe.blogspot.com/2010/10/stellar-jay.html

Man, it must be a sign of encroaching decrepitude... If my teenage / young adult self could see me get so excited about birds, he'd shake his head in dismay.

Paul in Powell River said...

It's a male - the females have the rufous colouring on the front.

And, LOL, I get excited about birds also!

JoJo said...

I've never seen a kingfisher in the wild! I didn't know they were native to this NW.