Episode 25: Belted Kingfisher – Voice of the Wild

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. A new wild voice in just a moment, so find someplace quiet, take a deep breath, and enjoy.

With an oversized bill and a shaggy punklike crest, this piscivorous bird goes about its business boldly. Take, for instance, its fishing strategy; diving headlong into shallow waters. Before a dive, it’ll spot its prey from a low perch or from a hover held confidently over the clear water. A dashing orange stripe across the chest means you’ve found a female; the males have only the basic blue and white. While they can be found year-round throughout Illinois, they can’t fish through the ice, so in a particularly cold winter, you may have to do a little looking for open water.

This is the belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) from the family Alcedinidae. If it catches you by surprise, a kingfisher flying down the watercourse of a creek will disappear beyond the next bend before you’ve even realized it was overhead. Luckily the kingfisher is almost always preceded by its clattering call, so when walking over a bridge be sure to pause and listen for the telltale sign of its approach; in fact...I think I hear one coming now.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new wild voice with Illinois Extension.