halftwo
Wird Batcher
Early morning and the high cloud overcast over the valley. Clouds of House Martins and Swifts circle and loop around and above the copse, where the breeze blown flies accumulate.
Young Swifts are in the air, feeding themselves on new wings, pale and pristine, fresh feathers feeling the air and cutting the wind.
Suddenly all make for the skies and bunch in a rising smoke - their life dependent on the height they gain. Below them and rising too is a Hobby, turning and circling towards the flock.
Soon the prey are specks against the grey and the falcon turns to the south leaving them to fall to the flies.
Out on the low moors a whole world of birds break for the sky: Curlew and Lapwing, Snipe and Jackdaws. Coming in from the north a male Peregrine is approaching on whipping wings. A young Curlew watches from the grass as the sky fills and the Jackdaws bunch in a tight ball, while waders scatter. The falcon dives.
Up he comes with a Curlew dangling below his outstretched talons as he labours with his still flapping prey, working uphill and away.
This evening on the high tops as the light begins to fade, the grey clouds quickening the night fall, a Short-eared owl is hunting. Like a Kestrel it hovers above the heather and grasses, big head bent to the moor, into the wind. Shifting and sailing and hovering again, broad long wings working against the breeze. And again shifting and again on station over the slope, then jinking down to a tussock, head first to the ground.
Up again and along the ridge, then a plunge. Gone to earth. Minutes pass and up it comes with a vole beneath its feet. It flies to a nest beyond a ridge and gone.
By the plantation at the final sigh of the day a Long-eared owl takes off from a fence pole and flies back to the night wood.
Morning to night time: a delightful day.
Young Swifts are in the air, feeding themselves on new wings, pale and pristine, fresh feathers feeling the air and cutting the wind.
Suddenly all make for the skies and bunch in a rising smoke - their life dependent on the height they gain. Below them and rising too is a Hobby, turning and circling towards the flock.
Soon the prey are specks against the grey and the falcon turns to the south leaving them to fall to the flies.
Out on the low moors a whole world of birds break for the sky: Curlew and Lapwing, Snipe and Jackdaws. Coming in from the north a male Peregrine is approaching on whipping wings. A young Curlew watches from the grass as the sky fills and the Jackdaws bunch in a tight ball, while waders scatter. The falcon dives.
Up he comes with a Curlew dangling below his outstretched talons as he labours with his still flapping prey, working uphill and away.
This evening on the high tops as the light begins to fade, the grey clouds quickening the night fall, a Short-eared owl is hunting. Like a Kestrel it hovers above the heather and grasses, big head bent to the moor, into the wind. Shifting and sailing and hovering again, broad long wings working against the breeze. And again shifting and again on station over the slope, then jinking down to a tussock, head first to the ground.
Up again and along the ridge, then a plunge. Gone to earth. Minutes pass and up it comes with a vole beneath its feet. It flies to a nest beyond a ridge and gone.
By the plantation at the final sigh of the day a Long-eared owl takes off from a fence pole and flies back to the night wood.
Morning to night time: a delightful day.
