November 9th
A magpie chattered in an elm near the river, watching the sky. Blackbirds scolded; the magpie dived into a bush as the tiercel peregrine flew over. Suddenly the dim day flared. He flashed across clouds like a transient beam of sunlight. Then greyness faded in behind, and he was gone. All morning, birds were huddled together in fear of the hawk, but I could not find him again. If I too were afraid I am sure I should see him more often. Fear releases power. Man might be more tolerable, less fractious and smug, if he had more to fear. I do not mean fear of the intangible, the suffocation of the introvert, but physical fear, cold sweating fear for one’s life, fear of the unseen menacing beast, imminent, bristly, tusked and terrible, ravening for one’s own hot saline blood.
Halfway to the coast, lapwings went up as a hawk flew above them. They kept in small flocks, and soon there were ten flocks in the air together, scattered across a mile of sky. Those that had been up longest flew higher and wider apart, drifting downwind in tremendous circles half a mile across. The most recently flushed stayed lower, wheeling faster and in narrower circles, closely packed, with only small chinks of light between them. When hawks have gone from sight, you must look up into the sky; their reflection rises in the birds that fear them. There is so much more sky than land.
Under sagging slate-grey clouds the estuary at low tide stretched out into the gloom of the east wind. Long moors of mud shone with deep-cut silver burns. The marshes were intensely green. The feet of grazing cattle sucked and shuddered through craters of dark mud. Several peregrine kills lay on the sides of the sea-wall. I found the remains of a dunlin, dead no more than an hour. The blood was still wet inside it, and it smelt clean and fresh, like mown grass. The wings, and the shining black legs, were untouched. A pile of soft brown and white feathers lay beside them. The head, and most of the body flesh, had been eaten, but the white skin – pimply from careful plucking – had been left. It was still in breeding plumage, which would have made it different from the majority of the flock and so more likely to be attacked by a hawk.
Later, a peregrine flew low across the marsh towards the dunlin he had killed not long before. A black-headed gull rose frantically up in front of him, taken by surprise. (Surely ‘taken by surprise’ must originally have been a hawking term?) The gull was not quite taken, however, for it strove up vertically, with wildly flapping wings. The hawk glided under its breast and wrenched a few feathers away with its clutching foot before sweeping over and beyond. The gull circled high across the estuary, the hawk alighted on the sea-wall. I walked towards him, but he was reluctant to fly. He waited till I was within twenty yards before he went twisting and zigzagging and rolling away in a most spectacular manner, dodging and jinking across the rising tide like a huge snipe. Shaped against the white water, he glided with wings held stiffly upward from his deep chest, as though he were cast in bronze, like the winged helmet of a Viking warrior.
November 11th
Wisps of sunlight in a bleak of cloud, gulls bone-white in ashes of sky. Sparrows shrilling in tall elm hedges near the river.
I moved slowly and warily forward through the flicking shadows of twigs, and crept from cover to find the tiercel perched on a post five yards in front of me. He looked round as I stopped, and we both went rigid with the shock of surprise. Light drained away, and the hawk was a dark shape against white sky. His sunken, owl-like head looked dazed and stupid as it turned and bobbed and jerked about. He was dazzled by this sudden confrontation with the devil. The dark moustachial lobes were livid and bristling on the pale Siberian face peering from thick furs. The large bill opened and closed in a silent hiss of alarm, puffing out breath into the cold air. Hesitant, incredulous, outraged, he just squatted on his post and gasped. Then the splintered fragments of his mind sprang together, and he flew very fast and softly away, rolling and twisting from side to side in steepling banks and curves as though avoiding gunshot.
Following him across the river meadows and over the fields by the brook, I found eight recent kills: five lapwings, a moorhen, a partridge, and a woodpigeon. Many fieldfares flew up from the grass. Golden plover and lapwing numbers have increased, and there are more gulls and skylarks now than there were a week ago. Fifteen curlew were feeding in stubble near the brook, among large flocks of starlings and house sparrows.
At one o’clock I flushed the hawk from a post by the road. He flew low along a deep furrow of ploughed field to the west, and I saw a red-legged partridge crouching a hundred yards ahead of him. It was looking the other way, oblivious of danger. The hawk glided forward, reached one foot nonchalantly down, gently kicked the partridge in the back as he floated slowly above it. The partridge scrabbled frantically in the dust, wings flurrying, righted itself, stared about as though completely bewildered. The hawk flew on without looking round, and many partridges began calling. He swooped down and kicked another one over as it ran towards the covey. Then he flew off towards the river. Peregrines spend a lot of time hovering over partridges, or watching them from posts and fences. They are intrigued by their endless walking, by their reluctance to fly. Sometimes this playful interest develops into serious attack.
November 12th
Very still the estuary; misty skylines merged into white water; all peaceful, just the talk of the duck floating in with the tide. Red-breasted mergansers were out in the deep water, diving for fish. They suddenly doubled over and down in a forward roll, very neat and quick. They came up, and swallowed, and looked around, water dripping from their bills; alert, dandified, submarine duck.
A red-throated diver, matted with oil, was stranded in a mud-hoe. Only its head was visible. It called incessantly, a painful grunting rising to a long moaning whistle.
I walked along the sea-wall between marsh and water. Short-eared owls breathed out of the grass, turning their overgrown, neglected faces, their yellow eyes’ goblin glow. A green woodpecker flew ahead, looping from post to post, clinging like moss, then sinking into heavy flight. The marsh echoed with the hoarse complaint of snipe. I found six peregrine kills: two black-headed gulls, a redshank, and a lapwing, on the wall; an oystercatcher and a grey plover on the shingle beach.
An oval flock of waders came up from the south; fast, compact, white wing-bars flashing in the dull light: ten black-tailed godwits. They lanced the air with long, swordfish bills, their long legs stretched out behind. They were calling as they flew – a harsh clamorous gobbling, a heathen laughter, like curlew crossed with mallard. They were greenish-brown, the colour of reeds and saltings. They were dry-looking, crackly, bony birds, with everything pulled out to extremes; beautifully funny. They did not land. They circled, and went back to the south. In summer, their breeding plumage glows fiery orange-red. They feed in deep water, grazing like cattle, and their red reflections seem to scorch and hiss along the surface.
From the big marsh pond came the murmur of the teal flock, like a distant orchestra tuning up. They were skidding and darting through the water, skating up ripples, braking in a flurry of spray. They sprang into the air as a peregrine came flickering from inland. By the time he reached the pond they were half-way across the estuary, their soft calls muffled like a chime of distant hounds. The peregrine disappeared. The teal soon came back, swooping and swirling down to the marsh, rising and falling like round stones skimmed across ice, humming, rebounding, vibrating. Gradually they settled to their feeding and musical calling. I moved nearer to the pond. A pair of teal flew up and came towards me in that silly way they have. The duck landed, but the drake flew past. Suddenly realising he was alone, he turned to go back. As he turned, the peregrine dashed up at him from the marsh and raked him with outstretched talons. The teal was tossed up and over, as though flung up on the horns of a bull. He landed with a splash of blood, his heart torn open. I left the hawk to his kill; the duck flew back to the pond.
November 13th
I flushed two woodcock from hornbeam coppice. They had been sleeping under arches of bramble. They rose vertically into sunlight, their wings making a harsh ripping