Thanks Steve. This was taken in the grounds of the Royal Livingstone Hotel at the Victoria falls during a lunchtime walk break from conferencing. The real midday sun! ID duly corrected.
steve
29-Sep-2006 07:05
Hi Andrew,
Came over from naturescapes to have a look (Cuckooroller). Yes, the source of many missed ID's this bird respect to leucocephala. The photo itself is slightly overexposed and I don't have a good idea of the depth of ventral coloration. But, having to guess therefore we are probably in S Zambia, and this is probably race orientalis. So, to note is the red beak with the black tip; the brownish and streaky caput with white supercilium; the relative absence of rusty rufousness on the vent. All of these features allow us to eliminate race pallidiventris of Halcyon leucocephala (the co-ranging race in Zambia). To cut all the preliminaries, this is Halcyon albiventris (Brown-hooded Kingfisher). The presence of dark brown dorsally instead of black indicate that the bird is female.
