Collared Kingfisher

Description:

Alcedinidae; Halcyoninae;Todiramphus chloris (Boddaert, 1783). This Collared Kingfisher visits our backyard every day, usually in the late afternoon. He perches in the exact same spot on the bamboo frame of a trellis and scans the vegetable plot until he spots a fat, juicy earthworm. Then, in the blink of an eye, he swoops down, snatches it with that strong looking beak and returns to his perch. The snack is consumed and he returns to scanning for the next one. As you can see, I have not yet managed to get a picture of him "in action". Everything happens much too fast. If birds were my main interest, there would not be much to look at on my spottings page. :-)

Habitat:

As mentioned in my remarks above, this Collared Kingfisher was spotted in our backyard. He has access to the South China Sea, the shore is about a half kilometer from here. There is also the Salasa River, some mangrove and a number of little streams, all within a short distance of our house, but this little guy has found easy pickings without much in the way of competition in our backyard. He is, of course a very welcome guest and does not have to worry about our cat who is rather elderly and would have no chance of catching him.