Thanks for the comments, Seth. I still maintain that this is female. The yellow bill with greenish tip (vs the male's black with yellow base), and the black face with tiny white spots, among other distinct features, make this one definitely a female.
This bird dislodges the BT Bee-eaters in my Top 25 gallery. There's a bit of a head movement here, as I kept the shutter speed within x-sync (1/250 sec) to preserve the power of the flash. But I'm pleased with the technicals over-all, specially the blending of the flash with ambient light. Though this beautiful bird is not uncommon, it's very difficult to capture well - it's shy and moves a lot. When one tries to search a pic (taken in the wild) of this bird in the net, seldom will a good photo crop up.