[TheMercenary]

Cool, I have been racking Google looking for the shot or a good scientific discussion about their behavior. Found this interesting little tidbit:

Belted Kingfishers have been known to share their tunnels with swallows. The swallows dig out small rooms tucked in the tunnel walls.
To avoid being eaten by hawks, they will dive into the water.
Human activity, such as digging gravel pits and building roads, have created banks where they can build nests and expand their breeding range.
A group of belted kingfishers are collectively known as a "crown" and a "rattle" of kingfishers.

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/61/...ingfisher.aspx

The breeding distribution of the Belted Kingfisher is limited in some areas by the availability of suitable nesting sites. Human activity, such as road building and digging gravel pits, has created banks where kingfishers can nest and allowed the expansion of the breeding range.


The Belted Kingfisher is one of the few bird species in which the female is more brightly colored than the male. Among the 93 species of kingfishers, the sexes often look alike. In some species the male is more colorful, and in others the female is.

During breeding season the Belted Kingfisher pair defends a territory against other kingfishers. A territory along a stream includes just the streambed and the vegetation along it, and averages 1 km (0.6 mi) long.The nest burrow is usually in a dirt bank near water. The tunnel slopes upward from the entrance, perhaps to keep water from entering the nest. Tunnel length ranges from 30 to 250 cm (1 to 8 ft).

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAbou...isher_dtl.html

challenge for any diving bird is the change in refraction between air and water. The eyes of many birds have two foveae (the fovea is the area of the retina the greatest density of light receptors),[14] and a kingfisher is able to switch from the main central fovea to the auxiliary fovea when it enters water; a retinal streak of high receptor density which connects the two foveae allows the image to swing temporally as the bird drops onto the prey.[15] The egg-shaped lens of the eye points towards the auxiliary fovea, enabling the bird to maintain visual acuity underwater.[14] Because of the positions of the foveae, the kingfisher has monocular vision in air, and binocular vision in water. The underwater vision is not as a sharp as in air, but the ability to judge the distance of moving prey is more important than the sharpness of the image.[15]

Each cone cell of a bird’s retina contains a oil droplet which may contain carotenoid pigments. These droplets enhance colour vision and reduce glare. Aquatic kingfishers have high numbers of red pigments in their oil droplets; the reason red droplets predominate is not understood, but the droplets may help with the glare or the dispersion of light from particulate matter in the water.[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Kingfisher