Birds by Land and Sea 



by the high trees, was the haunt of the kingfisher. He 

 had two regular perching-places one on a branch 

 of a dead tree which had fallen across the stream, 

 and the other a piece of a wooden fence which strode 

 the mouth of a small tributary. Both were situated 

 at spots where openings in the trees admitted the sun- 

 light to play upon the water they overhung. Upon 

 one or other of these perches the bird was often to 

 be seen ; but it was extremely difficult to approach 

 without scaring it, and the commonest view I had of 

 the kingfisher was as it flew with a rapid dipper-like 

 flight along stream, flashing like burnished metal as 

 it cut the detached shafts of sunlight which struck 

 throtigh the openings in the foliage above. Where 

 this stream emerges from the wood, it feeds an open 

 lake, in which there is a small wooded island. Often 

 when I have been sitting at the border of this lake 

 watching the moorhens, a sudden flash of brilliant 

 blue has drawn my eye where the kingfisher was 

 coasting the island, but by the time one had said 

 " There ! " the bird wheeled with a cant round the 

 willows, and for blue there was a momentary view 

 of the ruddy orange underparts, and it was gone 

 again. 



One should never have left these shores to be 

 able to accept the kingfisher as part of the scenes 

 in which we find him. But, for some, he must 

 always appear an exile from lands where a fierce 

 intensity of light and heat seem to combine to 

 express themselves in strange forms and gorgeous 



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