Juvenile Blue - eared kingfisher

Looks like a common kingfisher to me

@ralph The feathers of the Blue-eared Kingfisher are typically a deep blue, but the individual in this photo appears to have feathers that are a lighter blue.

You could be right. I identified the bird using the book Birds of India, a Princeton Field Guide by Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp &Tim Insnskipp.

@Terry Thomas

I recommend iNaturalist for identicifactions of wildlife.

However in this case I am pretty confident about myself as I'm very familiar with common kingfishers and I've seen blue-eared as well (both in the past week actually )

Looks like a common kingfisher to me. Blue-eared are very rare in Sri Lanka and are almost exclusively found on the east coast of the island.

I haven't seen either species; however, this looks most like a Common Kingfisher to me because of the orange/rufous ear patch. The kingfisher in this photo has a very prominent orange ear patch behind and below the eye. That's a characteristic of the Common Kingfisher, while the Blue-eared Kingfisher lacks this orange patch or has only a little orange below the eye. According to eBird, the juvenile Blue-eared Kingfisher can have and orange cheek patch, but the juvenile would also have a reddish-orange base to the bill, which is absent in the bird in this photo.