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Ruddy Kingfisher
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| Last Sunday, I went on an expedition to a
campfield in Tottori. It is laid in a beech forest and famous for ruddy
kingfishers to visit every summer. I arrived the field in the mid night,
and strolled to find birds from next early morning, but a thick fog hindered
me from looking any birds. In the meantime, photographers were gathering at a point in the campsite. They said there was a branch that ruddy kingfishers perched on. I heard that they perched on the branch and then brought foods into the nesting hole, which was on the far side of a dead big tree, so you could not see the burrow from the way. I looked the dead branch behind leaves. The Ruddy Kingfisher was my longed-for bird. Once for all I had a glimpse of it crossing a path in a forest in island of Amamioshima. Since then the Ruddy Kingfisher had been a kind of phantom for me, which I had never seen and just only heard the song. I was waiting for the kingfishers to make their appearance with great expectation. After a while, something deep-red passed in the dense greens noiselessly. It was a ruddy kingfisher! It seemed bigger than I had expected. It held something like river crab in its thick, shining-red bill and waggled its tail. Its eyes looked looking at a distance. This was a ruddy king fisher, the bird I had longed for. The next day, I went to the same place to watch its figure once again. Many photographers were there. "...?" Something was strange. I could look the branch much better. The tree was not there. It had should be enough big not to be broken off by a rain or a wind. I became feeling ill. I lost motivation to take out my camera. At the branch that was full exposed to view, however, the ruddy kingfishers had come. That was because their chicks were in that hole. If someone did something on the dead tree, how the one would think about the ruddy kingfishers? Or, am I a particular? It was a deadly day. Somehow I simply feel irritation. |
| (July 11, 1999) |