By chance, a letter and short nature note from the late Dick Harris, fisherman, learned entymologist, great observer of nature in all its manifestations, turned up in the files. It was possibly the idea for a series. Dick, by the way came out with a dictum new to his listeners when, after looking over a river, they adjourned for lunch. Whatever the menu was, Dick was offered a drink in the course of the meal. "No", he said, "the lion drinks only when he has finished eating." He always had wonderful stories of trout and other fish he had gone after. This is his short piece about a bird of the river.
"Our most exotic native bird, I always maintain, is the Kingfisher. Its extraordinary brilliant blue colouring when seen disappearing like a flash along the river is not only reminiscent of some birds from the rain forests of South America or the Far East, but its colouring is more brilliant even than some of those tropical species. How it ever came to settle in Ireland and most of Britain, is a mystery. It is also found in Central and Southern Europe and perhaps it worked its way northwards, possibly from India during the thousands of years when Europe flourished in a more mild and oceanic climate. The Indian Kingfisher is almost identical in colouring to our species, but is a noticeably larger bird.
"Hopefully our Kingfisher will remain with us until the next ice age appears. In the 1920s and '30s the birds were common on the Dodder river in County Dublin. One couple had a nest about 200 yards upstream from Orwell Bridge. There was another nest a hundred yards or so below Milltown Bridge, and a third nest was probably above Ballsbridge, but I never found its location. One Sunday afternoon a friend and I walked from Rathfarnham Bridge to Ballsbridge, along the river in most places. We saw seven Kingfishers in flight, but some of them may have appeared more than once. I was particularly fond of the pair which lived above Orwell Bridge. They did not seem to mind me fishing their area when I was trying to catch some of the quite good trout which lay in the flat upstream from the bridge.
"While there, I several times heard a plop as a Kingfisher dived from the low drooping branches of a large willow tree and caught a minnow. It was easy to recognise the silvery sheen of the minnow as it was carried away. It was not unusual to see one of them waiting expectantly only about 40 yards from me and not appearing in the least disturbed. After all, we each were trying to catch fish, but the Kingfisher was much more proficient at the job."