Malayan Blue-banded Kingfisher - BirdForum Opus

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Alternative name: Malaysian Blue-banded Kingfisher

Male
Photo © by the late Dr Manjeet Singh
Taman Rimba Ampang, Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia, August 2006

Identification

20 cm
Male

upperparts blackish
dark cap flecked with slightly lighter feathers
rufous neck collar (may be hard to see)
neck-flash white; reaches rufous collar
malar stripe bright(er) blue
throat white
may have indication of rufous loral spot
wings with blue spots, blue outer webs to the primaries
central back streak silvery-azure, from mantle to rump
underparts pale
chest band blue, often with marked white spotting. Same colour as malar, brighter than most blue on the bird
bill black
feet may be red (coral) but often darker, sometimes black

Female

A split from the similar Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher: they do not overlap in distribution. That species diifers as follows:

female has a blue breast band (lacking in the present species)
male's breast band perhaps slightly darker blue than Malayan's, generally with less white spotting

Female
Photo by wengchun
Taman Rimba Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, January 2006

This is a monotypic species^[1].

Rocky streams and rivers in secondary equatorial rainforests and mangroves. More frequent in lowland than in mountains.

The diet includes small fish, crustaceans, insects and small reptiles.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.1)_red. Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.1. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
Limparungpatthanakij , W. L. (2022). Malaysian Blue-banded Kingfisher (Alcedo peninsulae), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bubkin1.01

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Malayan Blue-banded Kingfisher. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Malayan_Blue-banded_Kingfisher

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