Pantanal Kingfishers

As you might expect for one of the world’s greatest wetlands, Kingfishers were not in short supply. There are only five species and we saw the lot – but the camera only caught up with two of these, so there’s not much diversity here!

The most obliging from a photographic point of view were Amazon Kingfishers, frequently remaining perched as the boat slid in closer and closer. The male has a large chestnut/rufous patch on the upper breast, while the female is metallic bottle green and white – both pretty smart!

The other species that got caught on camera was the huge Ringed Kingfisher – a fairly common, and often noisy, bird. We’d seen one or two of these in the Lower Rio Grande valley in Texas a few years previously.

Of the remaining three species, Green Kingfisher was reasonably common, but not as easy to see well, while American Pygmy Kingfisher and Green-and-rufous Kingfisher were only seen once or twice, in flight only.