The Belted Kingfisher (Ceryle Alcyon) Kingfisher Family
Called also: THE HALCYON

Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin. Male -- Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. Bill longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish wash on sides. Female -- Female and immature specimens have rufous bands where The adult male's are blue. Plumage of both birds oily. Range -- North America, except where the Texan kingfisher replaces it in a limited area in the Southwest. Common from Labrador to Florida, east and west. Winters chiefly from Virginia southward to South America. Migrations -- March. December. Common summer resident. Usually a winter resident also.

If the kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but because the streams near our homes are fished out. Fish he must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the sportsman's fly.