English

Belted Kingfisher with prey

belted kingfisher ‎(plural belted kingfishers)

1. Megaceryle alcyon, a North American species of kingfisher.
   • 1883, Maurice Thompson, “The Death of the White Heron,” in Songs of Fair Weather,

     The jaunty wood-duck smiled and bowed;

     The belted kingfisher laughed aloud,

   • 1999, George Wilby Scotter, Edgar T. Jones and Tom J. Ulrich, Birds of the Canadian Rockies, Fifth House Publishers, p. 82,

     It is called a belted kingfisher because of the blue-gray band across the breast of the male, with an additional reddish band below the blue-gray one on females.