Blue-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon malimbica)

About the Blue-breasted Kingfisher
The blue-breasted kingfisher (Halcyon malimbica) is a tree kingfisher widely distributed across Equatorial Africa. This kingfisher is essentially resident, but retreats from drier savanna areas to wetter habitats in the dry season. This is a large kingfisher, 25 cm in length. The adult has a bright blue head, back, wing panel and tail. Its underparts are white, but it has a blue breast band. The shoulders are black. The flight of the blue-breasted kingfisher is rapid and direct. The large bill has a red upper mandible and black lower mandible. The legs are bright red. Sexes are similar, but juveniles are duller than adults. The call of this noisy kingfisher is a whistled pu-pu-pu-pu-ku-ku-ku-ku.
No audio on this page yet
We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 87 recordings for this species: 4 CC BY-NC-SA · 1 CC BY-NC-ND. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Related species you can hear
- Mangrove KingfisherHalcyon senegaloidesrecording
- Striped KingfisherHalcyon chelicutirecording
- White-throated KingfisherHalcyon smyrnensisrecording
- Woodland KingfisherHalcyon senegalensisrecording
This species has no recording here yet — these relatives do, so you can hear what the family sounds like.