Forest Kingfisher

During our July 2018 visit to Byron Bay I have made five or six visits to the Byron Wetlands wastewater management area and each visit I have seen a pair of Forest Kingfishers but until late this afternoon they have proved to be shy and have eluded my attempts to take photos.

I found the pair this afternoon perched together high in a tree. They soon flew off in different directions and I followed one to a perch in a paperbark forest within one of the constructed wetland ponds.

At 4.30pm the sun was very low with just a few rays of almost horizontal light filtering through the moderately dense paperbark forest - just enough light fell on the Kingfisher to capture a few shots.

Please click on photos to enlarge.

Some of the breast feathers are wet – the birds were still hunting fish.