Ringed Kingfisher

Martín Pescador de Collar

Megaceryle torquata

Where and when to see the Ringed Kingfisher

Draft

On the Yucatán Peninsula

It lives along rivers, lagoons, wetlands and mangroves, perching high and in the open. Its loud rattle as it flies off usually gives it away first.

2–45–1920–99100+reports per ~10 km square

All year

Reports relative to effort

Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2025 · Base map: Natural Earth

Identification: A big, shaggy-crested kingfisher, nearly the size of a crow, slate blue above with a white collar and a massive dagger bill. The male’s underparts are all rusty red; the female has a blue-grey band across the chest.
Voice: A loud, harsh rattle, louder than the Belted Kingfisher’s, and a single loud “kleck”.

Draft

A patient fisher
It fishes from high, open perches, often 5 to 10 m above the water, and may sit for up to two hours before diving. Unlike the Belted Kingfisher, it rarely hovers. ^1,2
One shift change a day
Both parents incubate, but the naturalist Alexander Skutch found they swap only once a day, early in the morning. Catching that moment cost him long hours staring at an empty burrow. ¹
Burrows far from water
Pairs dig a nest tunnel 1.5 to 2.5 m long into a steep earth bank. The bank need not be near water: some are in road cuts more than 1.5 km from it. ²
The northern cousin
For six to eight months a year it shares rivers and lagoons with a migrant relative, the smaller Belted Kingfisher. The Ringed is the bigger bird, with a rusty belly in both sexes. ^1,3

Birds of the World (Cornell Lab): Ringed Kingfisher (opens in a new tab)
Audubon Guide to North American Birds: Ringed Kingfisher (opens in a new tab)
All About Birds (Cornell Lab): Ringed Kingfisher (opens in a new tab)
IUCN Red List category, via GBIF: Megaceryle torquata (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 2,088 records from 2015–2025 from eBird, Inventario de aves y mamíferos en humedales de Laguna de Términos y Pantanos de Centla en Tabasco y Campeche, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.

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