Kingfischer (1 Viewer)

Kingfisher

I feel both these are examples of the brown-hooded Kingfishers.

I have learned when ID kingfisher its important to check the upper and lower beak colours. In this case it is orange for both. When I first saw them I thought the were Mangrove kingfishers, mainly because of the orange beak and grey head (as apposed the the woodland kingfisher which is more commen around here), but because of the spread and colouring i think now they are brown-hooded kingfishers, not sure though. They are not Striped kingfishers as they dont have the brown lower body.

One image was shot at suncity (200 km of Johannesburg), the other at Rust de Winter (50km north of Pretoria)

One on right is albiventris. And also the one on the left (looked at chelicuti on this one).

Both pictures show a Brown-hooded Kingfisher. Note stripes on underparts. Also note almost completely red bill. Mangrove looks like Woodland Kingfisher, but is a paler grey below & on head (and of course the mainly red bill). Of course this can't be seen on the photos, but back-colour is also a good indication. Blue in Mangrove, brown in Brown-hooded.

100% brown-hooded Kingfishers
Sarel

Nice to see there are some other south africans here!!!!!