Yesterday we had heavy fog for all but about an hour around 3pm.  I spent a little time in the yard but there weren’t many photo opportunities so I headed out in my car to see what I could find.  Making a somewhat longer story shorter, I happened on this female Belted kingfisher at the Cap Sante Marina and managed to take several photos before the bird moved on.

I just missed getting a really good photo of the bird with a fish in its mouth, but I had to settle for a photo of it in the process of gulping down the meal.

If you never remember anything else from this post, you can learn an interesting fact about the birding world.  The Belted kingfisher is fairly unique in the bird world, even among other North American kingfisher species.  The female Belted kingfisher has brighter colors (ie, a rufous-colored breast) than the male of the species.  (See who among your birding friends can name a North American bird species in which the female’s color is brighter than the male’s!)