Belted King Fisher?

[skyviewer]

Let me know if i'm correct or not please.  Is it male or female?  As you can see in the pic it only has the single brown belt on the breast.  The other thing is that it didn't have the funky spiked hairdo from some of the pics i have seen.  It was a good size bird as well.  I did not think they were that big.
Sorry the pic isn't that great and thnks in advance.

[raypye]

Single breastband (blue)- male
Double breastband- female
Single breastband (brown)- juvenile (male and female)
Rayfield Pye

[Leslie Kinrys]

Yes, it is a male Belted Kingfisher.  A female would have rufous on the chest and sides. Birds can raise and lower head feathers. Always a great bird to see. Did you hear its rattling call?

[skyviewer]

Yep he was pretty irritated that i was around so he was making a lot of noise

[skyviewer]

I will post a picture later but i took a few pics of some belted kingfishers today and these were the size and look of what i expected for a belted kingfisher.  This particular bird above was at least double the size.

[skyviewer]

Here is the other pic of a belted king fisher.  Ther first pic above was taken at 400mm about 200-250ft from the bird.  I cropped it of course.

This pic was taken at 400m and at about 50ft.  This pic is also cropped but not nearly as much.  Notice the size difference.  Can anyone explain?

thanks

[raypye]

There are many reasons why two birds of the same species are differant sizes. In many species males and females are differant sizes. Sometimes that can be easly seen and sometimes it is only a few milmeters, but it can be measured.

The two birds in these pictures are juveniles. The top one is a juvenile male and the second picture is most likely a juvenile female (it could be a juvenile male). My first question would be, what is the age differance between the two birds. One bird could be several weeks older than the other bird.
Rayfield Pye