Wild Harringay: Kingfisher on the New River

What a glorious day it was yesterday! One of those beautiful Winter days when the sun is low, the air is crisp and the light almost golden. The Great Tits certainly thought so, as all across the neighbourhood, you could hear their distinctive "Teacher! Teacher!" call reverberating from the train line to street trees. 

As is my habit when walking up my road, I lingered for a moment to see what was going on at the New River. We are extraordinarily lucky to have this watery wildlife corridor wending its way through the Ladder and, in the past, I've witnessed many little magic moments on it from cygnets and baby coots making their way up and down, to swifts diving low over it and, one night, a stately heron motionless in the water. More unusually, I've witnessed terns fishing and, more recently, cormorants flapping their way noisily up it. 

Yesterday, however, was the first time I was able to watch a kingfisher diving from overhanging branches into the water. I was watching the solitary coot pootling about (solitary is the way they like it) when a movement out of the water caught my eye. At that moment, there were strong shafts of light coming from the low sun

and I spotted it, sitting on a branch overhanging the water. Phone cameras are not ideal for capturing birds but you can still make out amongst the tangle of winter twigs the bright blue of the kingfisher.

I almost certainly gasped audibly and desperately wanted to tell passersby what I was seeing but previous experiences (most notably when I tried to point out waxwings in the Harringay Passage) have shown me that most people smile and hurry past, not anxious to be drawn into my own personal "glimmer". 

So I stood watching (and hoping that no one came out and loudly asked me what I was doing as happened when I tried to photograph some trees on the New River a few years back) and to my delight the Kingfisher dived again bringing some tiny fish to its branch. It sat for a little longer and I took it in my head to take a video but the light was too bright, and it was impossible to capture. By the time, I'd lowered my screen, it had flown on. 

This is the second time I've seen a kingfisher. The first it was in flight, moving fast on the public access part by Hornsey station, and I'm pretty sure I gave a little whoop, startling passing dog walkers. You can't help yourself though, can you, when you see something special?

I was entranced by the recent documentary Wild London and it reminded me to keep looking, not only in wild places but in the places in our own backyards, the parks and scrubby places, the blue spaces like the New River, our own back gardens and in the street trees. The more you look, the more you see.