PEREGRINES

Evening Star, Issue 21993, 1 April 1935, Page 14

PEREGRINES

OVER THE ESTUARY The aeroplanes from the flying school on the level fields beside the estuary roared over the sandbanks, its wheels almost scoring the water. The tide was ebbing, and we stood on the sloppy sand beside the salmon boats, waiting to shoot their first draughts; they can only fish towards low water, owing to the swiftness of the currents and the press of tides (writes Henry Williamson, in ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly ’). The blue and white Moth sped towards us; we waited, preparing to throw ourselves on the sand; and then, with a fluttering snarl of its engine it showed the underlength of' its body climbing hundreds of feet above us. A waving hand, a glimpse of white helmet and goggles, and the aeroplane had become impersonal in the height of the sky. One of our party was a man who had trained and flown peregrine falcons; and I was just saying to him that I had not seen any of these birds this year, when a shout of “ Hawk ’’ from a fisherman made us all look the way he was pointing, There was a flicker of dark wings among gulls 200yds up the estuary. “ It’s the falcon,” said my companion, judging her by size. The tiercel, or male peregrine, is one tierce or third smaller than the female, of falcon. We could not see him. The gulls were scattering, the falcon cutting circles above them; she tipped Up on her side, and fell as though shot from a crossbow; she cut like a crooked iron nail among a pale flicker of small birds zigzagging along the waterline. “ Her’s draving they sand larks,” declared one of the fishermen. The “ sand larks ” were either ring-plover or sandpipers, which, we could not determine. They darted and turned and rose and fell, keeping in formation, while the falcon cut into them again-'and again, trying to separate one bird from the flock. t THE GRAND STOOP.

But the shouts to the others by a boat low r er down the sandbank.had disturbed the falcon, who abandoned the chase of the swift sand larks, and flew lackadaisically up and westward towards the low line of the Santon burrows in the distance. •

“ She’s got a full crop,” murmured the falconer beside me. “ I wish we had seen, and heard, the grand stoop. It’s terrific.” His eyes shone. v “ Your estimate of 200 miles an hour in your book, ‘ The Peregrine’s Saga,’ is not over-estimated. The shock of striking a pigeon in mid-air often bursts the pigeon’s crop and sends its head spinning away; it dies instantly.” We watched the falcon flying slowly westward, while the falconer declared that the bird had been merely playing among the gulls and the ring plover. Peregrines live in the fierce joy of flight. Many young birds die in captivity, pining away, dispirited, for their life is in the sky. Through-our glasses we watched the falcon ringing over the burrows or sandhills. slowly rising higher, and we were wondering what she was watching when a smaller crook-winged speck fell out of the sky above and below her. and she tipped on her side, beat her wings for greater speed, and fell upon it. Their black parabolas of flight cut and intersected. They were playing—the falcon and the tiercel. BADGE QF MATURITY. By the decision and dash of the smaller bird’s flight it looked as though he were an older bird, wearing the slateblue feathers of maturity on his back with the creamy brown-barred _ breast feathers, assumed by all peregrines in their, second year. The falcon seen through binoculars had been dark bi'own, therefore she was an eyas, or young bird of this year’s hatching. Now she was mated; she had been driven away from the eyrie by her parents, it may have been from any of the agelong eyries of Lundy or Lynton or Hartland 'or Baggy headland; she had hunted alone until a small black twinkling star had ceased to twinkle and had fallen upon her. the torn air screaming in his talons. That was all. They had hunted together; perhaps he had hunted and killed for her. He had preened her feathers, and, touched beak with his beak; shyly she had perched beside him. on some massif or jut or cliff while the Atlantic waves pounded far below. So they' will hunt and fly and rest together during the winter; and in March and April of next year that shared life will sharpen and concentrate upon its two halves. Tenderly, faithfully, that love will be dedicated to the species; and when the young eyases are flown awav the old birds will forget them, for they are living spirits of sun and air. And one day sharp death will strike one of the pair—by the shot of a gamekeeper, probably—and the spirit of. the fallen will live on in another bird; for to these noble birds grief, life, death, are the same thing. They arc, within the range of life created hy the sun. immortal.