Ringed Kingfisher - BirdForum Opus

Photo © by renato.santos.4b
Pocone, Mato Grosso, Brazil, 27 December 2021

Megaceryle torquata

Identification

Female
Photo © by Joseph Morlan
Concan, Texas, USA, 13 April 2021

40 cm (15¾ in)

• Deep blue or bluish-grey upperparts with white markings
• Shaggy crest
• White collar
• Rufous underparts
  

Females are more colourful than the male, with a bluish-grey breast, and a narrow white stripe separating the breast from the belly.

Similar species

Photo © by nick scarle
Pantanal, Brazil, October 2014

Belted Kingfisher

Distribution

Ringed Kingfisher is found in southern United States, Central America and South America, and three islands in the Lesser Antilles.

The Lesser Antillean subspecies is doing reasonably well in Dominica, but is very scarce in the other two islands; it may even be extinct from Martinique already (two observations in 10 years).

Taxonomy

Scientific name of Ringed Kingfisher has in the past been Ceryle torquatus.

Subspecies

There are 3 subspecies^[1]

• M. t. torquata:

• Extreme southern Texas to northern Argentina; winters to Trinidad; Isla Margarita

• M. t. stictipennis:

• Lesser Antilles (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica)

• M. t. stellata:

• Southern Chile and Argentina to Tierra del Fuego; winters to north-eastern Argentina

Habitat

Photo © by AWPittman
Olon, Ecuador, September 2016

Heavily wood areas near large bodies of water.

Behaviour

Breeding

Both sexes build a nest in a horizontal tunnel in a river bank or sand bank. The clutch consists of 3 to 6 eggs which are incubated by both parents who both feed the young.

Diet

Their diet consists mostly of fish (up to 20cm), with the addition of crabs, salamanders, frogs, aquatic insects, small mammals, lizards and berries.

Vocalisation

The most often heard sound is a clattering of beaks, similar to what the European White Stork is able to make. This sound is often given from birds in flight, presumably marking the territory.

Flight call: a single, loud klek.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Brush, T. (2020). Ringed Kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.rinkin1.01
3. Wikipedia

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2023) Ringed Kingfisher. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 30 November 2023 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Ringed_Kingfisher

External Links

Search for photos of Ringed Kingfisher in the gallery

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1