Blue-black Kingfisher - BirdForum Opus

Alternative name: Black-sided Kingfisher

Identification

A medium-sized Kingfisher with very distinctive subspecies.

Dark blue crown with paler supercilium
Black side of face and black mantle
Pale blue back becoming darker on rump and tail
Black bill with paler culmen
Nominate race with white throat, white breast spot, blue breastband and blue belly, female with white belly
quadricolor male with blue chestband and chestnut belly
stictolaemus male with black mottling on white throat and largely blue underparts

Juveniles are duller with buffish fringes above, buffy below and with dark orange breastband and flanks.

Endemic to New Guinea.
Not much information about population. Obviously more common in the western parts of its range.

There are 3 subspecies:

Wetlands - streams, swamps and ponds in forests to 600 m.

Diet little known. Feeds on crabs, fish and lizards.
Perches low over water or high in the canopy.
No information on breeding.
A sedentary species.

Del Hoyo, J, A Elliot, and J Sargatal, eds. 2001. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 6: Mousebirds to Hornbills. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-8487334306
Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, B.L. Sullivan, C. L. Wood, and D. Roberson. 2012. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to October 2012. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/downloadable-clements-checklist
Avibase
BirdLife International

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Blue-black Kingfisher. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Blue-black_Kingfisher

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.