A medium-sized woodland-dwelling kingfisher with a blue tail and flight feathers, dark brown back and shoulders, gray-brown streaked head, and dark-tipped reddish bill. In flight it has distinctive cinnamon underwings. Singles and pairs inhabit woodland, riverine forest, forest edges, and cultivation. Calls a short descending “ki-ti-ti-ti-it”. Gray-headed Kingfisher is similar but has a chestnut belly, grayer head and dark, and white-and-rufous (not all rufous) underwings in flight.