Woodland Kingfisher

I saw a woodland kingfisher on the edge of the Madamba Swamp on the edge of Lake Victoria, near Entebbe, Uganda. I'd just finished a walk with my guide from Nkima Forest Lodge, down the hill and over to the boat launch for the swamp. Several birders who were also staying at Nkima Forest Lodge were looking at it and I had a very hard time seeing it. 

  

Woodland kingfisher illustration, subspecies senegalensis, from Birds of the World.

It has a bright blue back, wing panel and tail; a white head, neck and underparts; black shoulders, lores (region between the eye and the bill on the side of the head) and lower mandible; dark gray legs and feed;  and a red upper mandible. 

It is found in tropical Africa south of the Sahara, but only a full-time resident within 8 degrees of the equator, birds north and south of that moving into the equatorial zone during the dry season. We were in the equatorial zone during the dry season.  

Range of the woodland kingfisher from Birds of the World.

There are three subspecies of Halcyon senegalensis: (1) H. s. fuscopileus, found from Sierra Leone to southern Nigeria and south to the DRC and northern Angola (the Congo Basin); it is smaller and darker than the nominate subspecies, has a more dark-gray and brown crown and the breast and mantle are grayer; (2) H. s. senegalensis, the nominate subspecies which I saw, found from Senegal and Gambia to Ethiopia and south to western Kenya, northwestern Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi; and (3) H. s. cyanoleuca, found from southern Angola to west Tanzania to South Africa; it is larger than the nominate subspecies, has a paler crown and a black wedge behind the eye.