Saturday, 20:25, London
I saw a kingfisher on the canal this morning. I’d taken a break from writing to make toast to balance the tannins from two cups of tea. I opened the balcony, breathing in the cold morning air, and noticed a rustle in the shrubs below. The butterfly plant rocked with a spring that couldn’t be from the wind alone. Then it popped up, a little blue shimmer of a bird perching alone on a bare wintered stalk.
It quickly nipped back into the shrubs, out of my line of sight. I nearly gave up waiting, my toast long cold in the toaster, but for the occasional flicker in the branches. Then it reappeared, a dash of orange and blue, with a little silver sprat in its mouth. I’d guessed the canal had life. But to see it bear fish was a surprise.
The kingfisher zipped up to a perch a few metres down the canal with the sprat still wriggling in its mouth. A few whacks of its silver little head on the branch sufficed to leave it lifeless; flicked and gulped down the gullet. After a minute or two digesting, the kingfisher was off, a little comet dashing off to Hackney Wick.