Crested Kingfisher

The crested kingfisher is a very large, stocky black and white kingfisher, usually 38 to 43cm long and weighing 230 to 280g. It has a large pointed black bill with a yellowish-white tip, a large shaggy barred black and white crest, finely barred upperparts, a white belly with a black-speckled breast band, and a white collar. Males and females are the same size but differ in plumage (Wikipedia, general species account).

One form lives in the western-central Himalayas from Afghanistan to Bhutan, and another in the eastern Himalayas east to central China and northern Indochina, from Bhutan to Vietnam. It is a specialist fish-eater, and in winter it migrates altitudinally to avoid frozen rivers in the Himalayas. It burrows a nest 2 to 3m long into a vertical bank, usually by forest streams or ravines.