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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Peregrine Takes A Swift (1 Viewer)

halftwo

Wird Batcher
The remains of the gale flings itself in lumps from a changing sky. Sunstrike runs across the valley, whipcracked between the sprinting clouds. Stripped leaves fly down the racing wind and in the lee the hirundines spin in the sheltering turn.
Above them Swifts arc in the blow - wings bowed and backswept. They scud down the gale and turn around the headland of the ridge. Light glints from their dagger wings.

From the west with the wind a tercel Peregrine appears - part hidden in the grey. He tucks into the gale and curves down into the valley like a bolt of dark lightning.

Between a blink predator and prey are fastened and the falcon brakes and rises - banking against the spilling tide of air, a surfer over the break. The Swift's wings jut below the Peregrine - stiff blades cutting the sky and dead.

The falcon circles into the sun, greys blueing in the blinding light, he turns against the tide and shoulders his wings to lessen the drag. His prey a small rudder below his smooth schooner - he drops his head and snips a wing - it sails downwind and away.
Now he tucks the Swift neatly and the gale is more manageable. Above him Swifts spiral and watch as he heads off for his nest. A bloodied body is held against his clean barred belly as he makes for the distance.
Swifts are returning high against the rain hissing from a closing sky. All except one.
 
....poesy, on the wing, no less. Ala Michener....?
In Michener's dreams. ;)
Funny, just yesterday, I watched a Peregrine while stopped at a light near the Seal Beach Weapons Station. He came up from the ground, didn't get much height, then, slowly spiraled down, tail spread like a fan. I watched him do that three or four times, then he flew off just as the light changed.
 
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