My newest favourite thing: Kingfishers

When I went for a bike ride last week, I was whirring round the bays when I saw a flash of brilliant blue. At first I thought it was a metallic crisp packet, it was so shiny, but then it took off and flew into a tree. I put on my brakes, pulled my feet out of my clips and admired the radiance of the kingfisher.

This is such a gorgeous, dazzling bird. It looks as though it is adorned with jewellery, and not the cheap stuff either. I carried on my ride, more aware now of the variable oystercatchers (I have visions of them being good at times and fair to middling at others), terns, petrels, and shags (we call them cormorants – it saves the giggling). Apparently sea birds sneeze excess salt out of their bodies. I think that’s fascinating!

I never thought as myself as a bird-watcher although I do remember as a child that my mother used to call me to the window to point out the blue tits, woodpeckers, nuthatches, robins and chaffinches. Not starlings – she didn’t like starlings.

She used to hang out a little bag full of nuts and scraps and bread crusts suspended from the rose trellis. The squirrels used to shin up the wooden joists and grab the bag in their greedy little paws. As they nibbled the goodies, they would be dive-bombed by twittering sparrows who wanted their turn.

When I first came to New Zealand, I realised the birds were different. Your kingfishers don’t look like our kingfishers. The herons, robins and magpies are all different. I bought a book to identify them and, in lieu of any native mammals to study, I got quite adept at naming the feathered companions to our walks.

If I didn’t know what a tweeting species was, I would invariably just give it a name at random – my husband was never any the wiser. Rifleman was my favourite. I’m still not sure that I’ve ever seen one, but it’s a cool name.

The fantails used to freak me out – they don’t behave in the way that I expected birds to. Rather than streaking off, they flitter about your head and feet, swooping in to catch the tasty morsels you disturb. Now I know what they’re doing, I’m quite happy to share my world with them. And what a rich, beautiful world it can be at times.