The fisher king

Iam getting into the water, clenching my teeth and regulating my breathing, when I hear it coming. A half dog-toy, half cricket chirp; a fluttering peep-peeping. There is a pause and then I see it too. A kingfisher on the wing; a bird that doesn’t so much as fly but unzip the air above the water. An electric-blue arrow that burns bright in the weak sun of a late winter afternoon.

It is a special sight. It always is. While kingfishers are not scarce on Britain’s waterways – there are an estimated 5,100 summer breeding pairs – seeing one still feels like a rare gift. After all, most sightings tend to be so quick, such a sonic boom of half-glimpsed colour, that it can take the brain a while to catch up. It is for this reason that I started swimming this stretch of the Little Ouse river in Suffolk so regularly, to try and become