It was a cold and crystal clear late morning in February, walking around the beaver pond when I heard the unmistakable call ...

The idea came to Spencer Hulsey in a doodle. During a physics discussion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she idly sketched a belted kingfisher, a blue and orange bird she saw ...

Learn to identify a belted kingfisher. See what the male and female look like, find out what the bird eats, and hear its call.

It's Thursday and you know that means Bird of the Week; however this month, we're adding a bit of trivia with it.

The kingfisher carried the day with a 625-vote margin out of some 7,800 that were cast. Hulsey grew up seeing the bird on her family’s farm in downstate Marion County.

Making the belted kingfisher our mascot could help bring awareness to conservation efforts. A bird that is so unique and important to our local ecosystem deserves nothing less than to thrive.

New images, video and audio has emerged of the belted kingfisher as it makes its home in Lancashire.

The bird was a couple of hundred feet away, but I knew immediately that it was a belted kingfisher. Its distinctive profile — large head, short neck, stocky body, short tail, chisel-shaped bill ...

A belted kingfisher sits on a branch in Oak Brook in 2011. University of Illinois students approved the bird as the school's mascot. CHUCK BERMAN, CHICAGO TRIBUNE ...