7 degrees at daybreak and good company the evening before: no chance of making it out for dawn this weekend. So it was the afternoon service for me in the Church of the Double-Bladed Paddle. Down the end of our street, the Hawkesbury in the golden hour.
A seaplane was parked out front of the ritzy Berowra Waters Restaurant, a few devotees of fine dining lingering over white linen, but otherwise the river was quiet. Weekenders emptied of their winter visitors, off home to find socks and check homework. Some stirrings in the sandy creek bed – stingrays? – but no fishermen and hardly a fish.
Some sun worshippers were receiving the blessing of the last rays on the southern shores of Calabash Bay.
And then, a true glimpse of the sacred. The sacred kingfisher, that is. I’d suspected they might be found around here, even in the winter. There was that green flash out of the corner of my eye as I scrambled over the rocks onto Bar Island, and the briefest of glimpses, framed by mangrove leaves, my camera hopelessly buried, one morning in Bujwa Bay.
But this glorious creature showed no inclination to move from his place in the sun, calmly accepting the adoration of passing paddlers.
Sacred kingfisher
But even a sacred kingfisher can be profane. I’m reverently gazing, barely taking a breath, and the big guy takes the opportunity to have a lightning fast chunder. There’s a familiar doggo look on his face as he sits there on his sunlit stick recovering.
But you expect veneration anyway, right, mate? And you’ll get it too.
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