Appears to be a new species for the gallery. These kingfishers were fairly common in a variety of wooded habitats. We often saw them perching on power lines as seen here. Note blue wings and tail which help separate this species from similar but smaller Sacred Kingfisher. I believe this is a male based on the strong buffy chest color. This species has recently been split from the widespread Collared Kingfisher (T. chloris) also known as Mangrove Kingfisher or White-collared Kingfisher formerly consisting of 50+ subspecies but now divided into six species: Collared Kingfisher, Pacific Kingfisher, Torresian Kingfisher, Mariana Kingfisher, Melanesian Kingfisher and Colonist Kingfisher. The new split is based on a genetic study by Andersen et al (2015) who found the Melanesian Kingfisher is actually more closely related to the Beach Kingfisher (T. saurophagus) than to Collared Kingfisher. This split has been accepted by Clements et al. (2019) and Gill & Donsker (2019), but not by Woodall (2019) or Christides et al (2018). There are seven subspecies of which New Georgia birds are the buffy race T. t. alberti. Older references place these birds in the genus Halcyon.
