Belted Kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon) are normally very skittish and it seems like they always choose to perch in distant trees. This past weekend, however, a female Belted Kingfisher flew to some trees that were a lot closer than usual and I was able to capture these shot. The images don’t exactly fill they frame, but they do show a lot of the cool details that make the kingfisher so special. In case you are curious, it is really easy to identify the gender of Belted Kingfishers—only the females have the rust-colored stripes on the chest, one of the few cases in which a female of a bird species is more colorful than the male.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I love that first shot where the kingfisher appears to be smiling.
Nice shots! I don’t see many kingfishers on any blogs.