I’ve never vehemently kept a life list, never been an avid twitcher, never spent teeth-gritting hours searching for that one bird. But if ever I’ve had anything of an avian nemesis, it must be the common kingfisher. The little living streaks of lightning blue that brighten European river and streams. There’s two pairs living in the river near my home, and I regularly saw them on walks. Determined to snap a photo of one, I started taking my camera along. As one might expect, the kingfishers promptly vanished.
Until the day I forgot my camera, and one happily perched on the sluice, only a few paces away. Next day I had my camera again, and no kingfishers. This continued for some time.
Only when I moved some 100 km away, to a place with a little pond in the garden, was my curse lifted. One day a dainty kingfisher lady settled down by the pond, and at long last my photos were taken. Almost exactly a year later a male visited. Those were the only two times I saw them there in almost three years time.
– Coloured pencil on brown toned paper, 14,8 x 21 cm