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Yellow-billed Kingfishers are relatively small kingfishers. The head, apart from a black fringe under each eye, is orange-rufous, with an erectile crest. The two sexes look similar, with only one noticeable difference - Males have an orange-rufous cap, while the cap of females is dark-grey. Both sexes have a dark-grey spot at the nape of the neck. The front is cream-buff to pale orange-rufous, with the darkest hues down the sides/flanks, while the chin, belly, vent and undertail coverts are lightest. In direct comparison one can see that the front of females is slightly paler than the front of males. The back is olive-grey, with turquoise on the leading edge of the folded wings, a turquoise/blue rump and a blue-grey uppertail. The irises are dark. The bill is yellow, with a dark ridge near the tip of the upper mandible. The legs and feet are orange. Juveniles have slightly duller colours than adults and initially a dark-grey bill with a lighter grey base.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Yellow-billed Kingfisher is available HERE .

There are three extant races of Yellow-billed Kingfishers, which are a sedentary species found only on New Guinea, associated smaller islands and in far north-eastern Australia. Race "torotoro" is found on the West Papuan islands, in lowland New Guinea and on Aru Island. Race "ocracea" is endemic to D’Entrecasteaux Island, while race "flavirostris" breeds only on far north-eastern Australia.

In Australia, only Yellow-billed Kingfishers, race "flavirostris", are found. They are endemic breeders that populate only the northern tip of Cape York peninsula, to about the latitude of Cape Melville, QLD.

Yellow-billed Kingfishers have a preference for tropical low-land rainforest, monsoon forest and along forest edges.

Race "flavirostris"

M. Eaton reports finding a Yellow-billed Kingfisher, race "flavirostris", at Iron Range NP, Cape York peninsula, QLD, in August 2019. All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has been kindly contributed by M. Eaton.