A Flash of Turquoise

“Kingfisher on Blue”

Yesterday morning, on my usual walk, I saw a kingfisher.

It was one of those sightings that happens so quickly you almost wonder if you imagined it. I caught a flash of bright turquoise as it flew from beneath a bridge over a stretch of canal. Although I walk that route almost every day, I have only seen a kingfisher there two or three times in all the years I have been going.

Luckily, it returned beneath the bridge and flew back towards me. This time I saw the vivid orange beneath the blue too: those completely unmistakeable colours, even when the bird itself was only a blur moving quickly through the air.

Without knowing what to look for, I’m not sure I would have been quite so certain about what I had seen. After all, it was only a streak of colour, there and gone again. But knowing that kingfishers have that extraordinary turquoise-blue back and bright orange underside made the moment clear. Their colours feel almost unreal—so intense and unexpected against the muted greens and browns of a riverbank.

It made me think about how much of seeing is about noticing. We can walk through the same places again and again, but sometimes a small change in light, colour or movement makes us stop and look properly. Perhaps we notice more when we know a little about what we are looking for; perhaps we are simply more ready for those moments.

That sense of a brief encounter is something I try to explore in many of my paintings. In “Perched” for example, below, the painting shows a small bird paused amongst branches, before it disappears just as quickly as it arrived. There is movement in the overlapping foliage and diagonal branches, and a slight feeling of imbalance—as though nothing will stay still for very long.

The background is dark and indistinct, while the leaves emerge towards the viewer in vivid, almost fluorescent colour. They draw the eye towards the bird at the heart of the composition, but the bird is still only there for a moment. I wanted the painting to hold onto that feeling of catching sight of something in nature just before it vanishes.

The kingfisher I saw yesterday was not the bird in “Perched”, but the experience felt very similar: a sudden flash of colour, a moment of recognition, and then it was gone.

Those are the moments I love most. They are easily missed, but when you do see them, they stay with you.

“Perched”