Some birds you forget. Others never leave you.
Then there are the ones you keep going back for, visit after visit, like an old friend whose company you crave even if they rarely show up when you expect them to.
That’s exactly how I feel about “My” Amazon Kingfisher. A bird that I had photographed for the better part of two years. A few months ago, I shared a story about this Amazon Kingfisher in a collaborative post with other 10000birds.com writers, celebrating our favourite species across the globe. If you missed it, you can read that tribute here: Our Favorite Kingfishers.
A few weeks ago, I returned to my old neighbourhood, a quiet spot in semi rural Panamá with an artificial lake that somehow feels more alive than many natural ones. This was once my regular birding beat, my go-to patch of green and blue where I first locked eyes (and lens) with this emerald monarch of the water’s edge.
Hope, it’s said, is a birdwatcher’s most essential gear. So, like clockwork, I went out every day with my camera slung over my shoulder and my eyes scanning the usual perches, low hanging branches, exposed roots, and wherever else I felt he may decide to perch. But the Amazon king was nowhere in sight.
Day one passed. Then day two. By the third day, I began wondering whether he had moved on or grown too used to life without paparazzi.
But I kept going. Every day. Same time. Same walk.
On the fifth day, I nearly stayed in. But something, call it instinct, or perhaps just the absurd optimism that birders are blessed (or cursed) with, nudged me out the door.
I didn’t see the emerald monarch that day, but instead I saw a much larger Ringed Kingfisher.
Sitting quietly on a branch just above the lake’s edge, bulkier than his Amazon cousin and a little more composed too, surveying what I assumed was now his territory. He let me get surprisingly close. I stood there, camera in hand, watching him scan the water (and me) below with that timeless, focused intensity all kingfishers share. That moment was enough, I realised that a new King was in charge, ruling over this abundantly well stocked feeding trough.
Now that I sort of knew where his favourite perch was, I was able to spot him again over the course of the following week. I still did not see the Amazon Kingfisher, that I had come hoping to see but I was still happy that at least there was a new resident.
What a surreal moment.
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