Many faces of the neighborhood kingfisher.

This little bird of prey is so tiny. Not as tiny as a blue-gray gnatcatcher but much smaller than the hawk or osprey that hangs out in our channel. It's a she. The female kingfisher has the rust color around the chest. It would be nice to see a male in the neighborhood but so far I've only seen a female. She tends to hang out on our dock or our neighbor's dock. Occasionally, on the weekends I can hear her chattering and I peak out the window to see her sitting there. She must be a migratory bird since I only see her in the winter. Kingfishers are very skittish birds and don't hang around when people are present. Any of the pictures I have taken in our channel have been through a window. The second I walk outside she is gone. Other birds will hang around for a while watching me take their picture. All of the above were taken on Thanksgiving weekend. The picture below was taken last winter. I wonder if it's the same bird. The rust on the bottom is not all the way across but she might have grown that in this past summer.