Discoveries
Now and then I am fortunate enough to witness spectacles which remind me exactly why I do this job. Last week, thanks to a series of fortunate coincidences, I watched the most spectacular drama unfold in front of my eyes, which left me totally elated, if not a little chilly! It involved the species dearest to my heart, and the closest encounter with one I have ever had. It may not have strictly speaking taken place on Exmouthian soil, but I could see the town in the distance so I thought it deserved a mention here.
There is an adage that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing, last Thursday I was to find out how true this statement is.
I had a morning meeting at the Environment Agency, to discuss the Exe Estuary. Not a prospect which filled me with instant, drooling expectation, but similarly not something I was totally dreading either. I left the house, got to the bottom of my road and realised I had forgotten my fleece jacket. Drat, I can’t go back for it, otherwise it will mean disturbing the puppy and I’ll not get to the meeting in time. No matter, I’m only dashing to a meeting, I’ll pick it up on my way back though.
The meeting passed without incident and as I was walking back to the car, chatting to my manager, I realised what a lovely afternoon it was turning out to be. I decided to quickly look in on a stubble-field nearby that I knew sometimes contained interesting birds. A quick ten minute scan to see if I could add to my year list and then back to pick up my coat… or so I planned.
As I entered the field I realised that the crows and rooks were making a proper racket, not just me disturbing them, but something more profound. I then spotted the cause of the ruckus, in the middle of the field I could see the wings and tail of a sparrowhawk, was struggling with a blackbird and the crows were above, adding their tuppence-ha’penny.
I squatted down on the edge of the path and had a closer look through my binoculars. As you might have picked up from this column, I am particularly fond of raptors, so the chance to see a kill close up was too good to miss.
As soon as I focussed I realised I had been quite wrong. This wasn’t a female sparrowhawk on a blackbird, the mess of grey and black feathers were in fact a peregrine desperately trying to subdue a rook! No wonder the local crows were going bonkers! My pulse quickened and I had to shift position to steady my shaking hands.
For as long as I can remember, peregrines have been at the heart of my love for natural history and here I was with the closest encounter to a wild falcon I had ever had. Both parties had their heads in the stubble when I entered the field and now I was downwind of the pair, squatting in the lea of the hedge, I was confident I would not disturb them.
I needn’t have worried. The fatal struggle between rook and falcon continued with ferocious anger for the next thirty minutes. I was rapt. The falcon was an adult female and quite a size, however for some reason she had not got a particularly good connection to her quarry and the young rook was fighting back with the kind of energy any animal is capable of when staring certain death in the face. To be fair to the corvid, there were a couple of times when I thought he might get away, the flacon however remained resolute and stubbornly bound.
I wanted to get even closer, to put into practice my two days as an army cadet and tiger crawl towards the brawling pair. I held off though, because as much as I wanted to get a closer look, my overriding sense was to not affect the unfolding drama, to have done so wouldn’t have been fair on either bird.
The pair wrestled on the ground for a full 45 minutes, before all went quiet and I presumed the falcon had prevailed. A large flock of finches caught my attention and I turned to look. When I looked back a second later I couldn’t make out what was what.
The head of neither bird was visible, two raggedy looking black wings stuck straight up into the sky and the rook’s belly rose above the stubble like a breaching whale. Where was the falcon? My attention had been away for literally a second, there was surely no time for her to have flown off without me seeing her, but where was she?
My biggest fear was that she had either caught my scent and left the kill – which would have meant serious consequences after for her after putting in that much effort to subdue the prey. The second thought was that the rook had somehow inflicted a wound on the peregrine in its dying breath and she was lying nearby.
I shifted to a crouch, and with my binoculars still pressed to my eyes, I moved gingerly downhill. I didn’t approach the scene, in case I disturbed the situation – my overriding fear was that I might jeopardise the precious consumption of this extraordinary kill. When I had moved around to a right angle of where I had been crouching, I could see that what I thought was the belly of the rook, was in fact the back of the falcon, totally still and lifeless.
When a falcon makes a kill, they normally squat above the quarry with their wings outstretched, what is called mantling the prey. This bird however had apparently fallen exhausted on top of the rook and I grew even more concerned. I held still and watched for a further ten minutes. In this excruciating time there was no movement from either bird. Five more minutes, I thought, and then I will have a closer look.
Thank goodness I held on, as after another two minutes the peregrine looked up. I breathed a sigh and relaxed. I then promptly jumped out of my skin as the rook got its second wind and started struggling once again!
The peregrine had a better bind now however and began to consume the most valuable and energy-rich parts of the rook, namely the Breast muscles and liver (I hesitate to point out, while the rook still struggled). By this time I had been squatting in a muddy field for the best part of an hour and a half, in January, with no coat on. My fingers were so numb I could not feel my binoculars and I was shivering more with cold than with excitement. With the falcon mantling the prey with its back to me and feeding heartily, I got to my feet, crept out of the field and ran back to the car. I jumped in and dashed back home, straight up to the computer, which is where you find me now, the feeling in my fingers just about returning.
I realise that the above account is rather gory but, at the heart of it, real wild-life is just that. The beauty of this scene was not aesthetic, but it was no less beautiful. I watched two animals literally struggling for their lives, both had all to loose, as the peregrine had spent so much energy struggling over the previous hour. Here was a world in which things don’t merely poddle along and exist – they survive! And it’s all out there for us to see. That’s what motivates me to do my job; that’s the sort of thing that drags me into the office in the morning.
It’s a bit of a shame, however, as I had ever such an entertaining article planned about Madagascan palm trees, perhaps that will have to wait until next week.