HUNTERS OF THE AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1939, Page 7

HUNTERS OF THE AIR

THE WAYS OF FALCONS

SPEED IN STRIKING

Above the brown valley plain, the songlarks flung down their rich spring song, a little querulously it seemed at the moment; for the black-cheeked falcon had crossed the sky that day— literally crossed it, I mean—and falcons are enemies of songlarks, and immeasurably swifter, writes Archer Russell in the "Sydney Morning Herald." But that they had seen her coming . and dropped like stones to the grass, they might never have escaped. And now, perhaps, dimly in their little minds, they feared she might come again. As for us, watchers of the wild in all its little dramas, we had never a doubt. It is not the way of falcon 3 to go hungry for very long. On the following morning, with the first light of dawn, we went afield. The larks were soaring over the pastures in the full tide of song. That was a mis- . take. We had scarcely come to the edge of the plain, when, swifter than eye could follow, a falcon swept darkly over the trees, pitched high in the air, and swooped. Down on slanting wings she flashed, struck at the nearest lark, missed, soared, regained her pitch, and swooped again. At the first attack, the larks, true to their instinct, sped like falling arrows straight for the ground. Would they '. reach the earth in time? We hoped so. And they did, too —all but one. That one unhappy bird, turned and swung away. A/fatal'move. Rushing at the lark,' on her second attack, the falcon struck again, sending the stricken creature spinning through the air. After, r that it was merely a matter of collecting, the spoil, which the falcon lost no Time in doing, pincering her1 s victim firmly in her talons, and sailing off across the trees. In the space of ten seconds, perhaps less, the falcon had cleared the treetops, struck twice, captured her quarry, and made off.. GREY AND BLACK FALCONS. In the course of my career as a travel and Nature writer, I have had to undertake long journeys into some of the remotest parts^of Australia. One district in .particular, in the Grey Ranges in the north-west corner of New South Wales, I found tremendously interesting. It was the chosen haunt of three of the four species of falcons native to Australia, namely, the peregrine, or black-cheeked, falcon, the grey falcon,'or smoke hawk, and the black falcon. Straight up from the barren defiles the hills, girt with creek gums . at their base, rose in scarps of overhanging rock, cloven into windy fissures and caverns by the age-old cycle of sun and storm. High among the broken pinnacles the peregrine, orv black-cheeked, falcons had their eyries; while in the tops of the taller creek gums-—though never, -I noticed, in the same locality—were ' the loose stick nests; of the grey and the black falcons. From these high places among 7 , the hills the birds could survey the plains, alert to; whatever moved on wing or foot. - " -I was climbing among the higher pinnacles one day when, of a sudden, I saw a black falcon swooping down towards me. As I could see nothing near at hand that could possibly have attracted the bird's attention, I stood to watch it pass; for it made a beautiful picture, swooping there against the .shimmering sky. But it did not pass; instead a button quail, which I had not hitherto observed, rose whirring from my feet. The falcon banked, swooped—and was gone. Gone, too, was the quail. The falcon had used me as a beater, and,.with the quail beaten up, had struck and clutched its, prey while on the wing not twenty feet from where it rose. > LIGHTNING SPEED. But this -is no new thing in falcon behaviour. A black falcon sailing in the. sky sends every small bird skeltering for cover, as well it might. The. falcon, soaring high in the air, follow* the sheep and cattle as they graze over the plains, and swoops upon any small bird that the stock disturb, streaking down from a height of perhaps 200 feet to seize its quarry as it rises on the wing. Twice, when riding by, I : have seen desert chats caught in this ■ way. As, on each occasion, the chat had only to fly some 30 or 40 feet to . gain the cover of the nearest bush, and yet was caught, the speed of the black falcon on its earthward swoop must be amazing. But this, in regard to the three species already mentioned, only applies in its entirety to the black falcon; 'the grey falcon, or smoke hawk, for instance, is not nearly so fast or:'courageous; while the peregrine, or black-cheeked, falcon, in turn, though perhaps the equal of the black, falcon in both speed and courage, seems preferably to. hunt the birds ' that flock more upon the wing—budgerigars, finches, pigeons, galahs; and in. hunting them it usually separates its victim from the flock and swoops upon it, rarety missing. Certain it is, the eyes of falcons are ever pointed down, searching for whatever is afoot or on the wing; and from the instant it is seen to the moment it is struck, be the falcon's earthward swoop never so swift, the prey is never lost sight of, the focal adjustments of the eye operating to keep it. ever in its line of yision. But it is the little, or wlj/ite-fronted, falcon, the smallest of them all, that •: is the real demon of the Australian falcon family. He is as near to being . . an aerial torpedo as anything I know. - It avails a bird little to seek the shelter . of the bushes if the little, or whitefronted, falcon should happen to be after it. He will flash clean through a bush or tree, cutting everything, from his path and grasping his victim from the thickest foliage, rather than. it should escape his amazing attack.