News from RSPB Gravesend

Thursday, 22 November 2007

juvenile malachite kingfisher? maybe not...

Spot the difference. Well, I didn't know. Jan sent me this photo of a kingfisher that she had taken on holiday. What she didn't tell me was that she had been to the Keurbooms River in South Africa!

posted by Gravesend RSPB News Editor @ 17:25 6 comments

6 Comments:

At 22 November 2007 21:38, Anonymous said...: fantastic photo!
At 25 November 2007 17:15, Amby said...: WOOT ! go gran great photo seen it in the flesh! looks better there ! Fantastic ! =]
Love
Amber
xxxx
At 21 December 2007 23:10, John Wilson said...: John Wilson here, long-standing member of the group [ask Geoff & Cynthia Wright]. This is spooky - my wife and I did a trip on the Keurbooms River in Sept this year. Nice pic - this is in fact an adult Half-collared Kingfisher. We saw a pair there not far from the stop off picnic point in a side creek. Note the blue cheeks and the black bill - latter is red and former are orange in Malalchite. This is a scarce bird in that part of SA. Happy Christmas to all in Kent.
At 21 December 2007 23:14, John Wilson said...: PS I should have said, our guide said that the river there is a good site for them as there are a resident pair. They are slightly bigger than Malachites. Hope the rest of your hol Jan was as good as ours!
At 22 December 2007 11:30, Malcolm said...: When I posted the picture I didn't think it was a juvenile malachite kingfisher either! Happy Christmas John and Ann
At 22 December 2007 15:56, Anonymous said...: Hi John,
Thankyou for your comment.Our guide had mentioned Malachite so I compared my photo with 'What's that Bird? A starter's guide to birds of Southern Africa. I missed the blue cheek but the juvenile did have a black beak. If Malcolm had queried it at the time, I might have tried harder.
We thought the holiday was brilliant too. Merry Christmas.
Jan.