Male Belted Kingfisher, November 2021.
This is how it goes. I hear the Belted Kingfisher's call. It's an elongated trill that sounds like THIS. I dash inside for my camera and back outside to the pond's edge. My head goes right, then left, and up as kingfisher does a loop d'loop. I try, oh how I try, to get a photo to show you.
I notice there are two. My guess is that they are both males because I cannot see any rust color on their breast, the sign that the Belted Kingfisher is female. They're probably "discussing" territory.
After birding, I come home and read about the birds I see. Today, from this David Allen Sibley book:
On this page.
It says,
"Kingfishers catch fish by 'hovering' and then diving headfirst into the water. If you watch carefully when a kingfisher is hovering, you'll see that the head remains stationary in the air, holding a fixed position over the water, while the wings flap, the tail adjusts, and the body shifts around, doing the work of flying. It's important to keep the head steady so that the eyes can remain fixed on a potential target below..."
Sibley's website has a blog, his drawings, and links to his wonderful books. He designs birding apps.
Here is a photo I took of a female BK a year or so ago.
