Belted Kingfisher

Megaceryle alcyon · Kingfishers

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Belted Kingfisher, female

Constitution Marsh, 17 October 2026

A female Belted Kingfisher calling from a dead tree above Constitution Marsh, crest up and bill open. Kingfishers fish clear water across the whole of North America, and each holds its own stretch of shoreline, announcing it with a loud, dry rattle that is usually the first sign one is about.

The rusty band across the belly marks her as a female, and makes her the more colourful of the pair; a male has only the blue-grey band across the breast. It is one of very few North American birds where the female is the brighter, and nobody has a settled explanation for it.

Belted Kingfisher, male

San Diego, 6 March 2026

A male Belted Kingfisher on a perch over a San Diego pond, at the western edge of a range that covers nearly all of North America. Kingfishers need clear water to see fish in and a bank to dig a nest tunnel into, and a park pond with both will hold one all winter.

A shaggy blue-grey crest and a single grey breast band with no rufous below it: the plain white belly marks a male. Females carry a second, chestnut band across the flanks that males lack entirely, one of the few North American birds in which the female is the more boldly marked.

Belted Kingfisher

Ebenezer Creek, 15 February 2025

A male Belted Kingfisher on a bald cypress knee at Ebenezer Creek, a kingfisher of clear water and steep banks across the whole of North America, and at home on a blackwater swamp in Georgia in February. It hunts by watching from a perch like this rather than working the water on the wing, dropping straight down onto anything that surfaces within range.

A single grey-blue band across the breast rather than the double band a female would show, so this one is a male. It is one of the few North American birds where the female is the more colourful of the pair. They nest in a tunnel dug into a riverbank, up to two metres deep.