Blue-eared Kingfisher

Fascinating facts about the Blue-eared Kingfisher

• The blue-eared kingfisher is set apart by vivid blue ear coverts that the common kingfisher completely lacks. These ear feathers sit above darker, more intense cobalt-blue upperparts and richer rufous underparts, giving the bird a striking contrast. Its crown is also darker than that of its relative, reinforcing the distinctive facial pattern. At just 16 centimetres long, the bird carries this bold colouration wherever it darts over shaded forest streams.
• During the breeding season the blue-eared kingfisher excavates a tunnel about a metre long into the bank of a forest stream, creating a secure nesting chamber. Inside this burrow the pair lays five to seven white, nearly spherical eggs, which are incubated until hatching. The timing of breeding varies across its range, occurring mainly in May-June in northern India and in January in the southwest.
• Adult male blue-eared kingfishers bear an entirely dark bill, while females display a distinct reddish tint on the lower mandible. Juveniles possess a reddish bill with whitish tips before attaining adult plumage.
• The blue-eared kingfisher is tied to watercourses that stay below a thousand metres, favouring pools and streams that wind through thick evergreen forest. These habitats are often shaded, providing the dim light the species prefers, and it will also turn up at the edges of mangrove stands when they occur. By staying in such low-lying, densely vegetated waterways the bird can exploit the abundant aquatic prey while remaining concealed from predators.
• When hunting, the kingfisher perches on a low branch that overhangs a dark, shaded stream before launching a swift dive to snatch its prey. Its diet is diverse, taking crustaceans, dragonfly larvae and small fish captured underwater, and it also adds other insects such as grasshoppers and mantids when available. This opportunistic feeding strategy lets it exploit the rich invertebrate community of forest streams throughout its range.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Blue-eared Kingfisher

In the dappled light of a tropical forest, the Blue-eared Kingfisher flits with iridescent precision, its sapphire plumage flashing like a shard of fallen sky as it darts between the sun-drenched trees. With a swift, economical motion, it plunges into the waiting waters, its slender body a perfect, aerodynamic arrow, before emerging triumphant, a glinting fish clutched tightly in its bill. As it perches, victorious, on a moss-encrusted branch, its bright, black eyes seem to hold a fierce and unyielding spark, a testament to the unbridled vitality of this most captivating of creatures.

More birds to discover

Browse Feravox