Olan Giech
Trekker
I was finishing off pruning back the vine today, atop the ladder in the fresh air, when about a 100m or so away I saw a falcon. I thought to myself "That's a blooming big kestrel."
Then about 1/2 an hour later I saw the same bird fold back her wings, and hurtle out of the sky like a Tornado and smack a pigeon 20m away from me. "That's no kestrel I thought, that's a blooming Peregrine!" Big too, and quite lightly covered. The pigeon landed in a neighbours garden where their Bracco was leaping about and barking it's head off as usual.
I saw the hawk a number of other times during the afternoon, chasing this and that, but surprisingly I didn't see her getting mobbed, infact the sky was really empty of any bird. Unlike when buzzards fly over and get mobbed by crows and gulls almost to death, the skies were void.
I spoke with one of my neighbours who is in his seventies and in his words, an ex-hunter, he said that at this time of year it is quite common to see them, and the short toed eagles too though they are easy to define, like big white buzzards that cry like cats mewing for milk. Of which I'd even seen one above the rooftops in the centre one morning at around 7.00am, when I was hanging the washing on the terrace. I could hear a hawk screaming it's head off and then she flew up from the street over my head by 2m surrounded by gulls, that kind of thing certainly makes one jump.
So I'll be keeping my camera loaded with film nice and handy, and the long lens on it too.
Then about 1/2 an hour later I saw the same bird fold back her wings, and hurtle out of the sky like a Tornado and smack a pigeon 20m away from me. "That's no kestrel I thought, that's a blooming Peregrine!" Big too, and quite lightly covered. The pigeon landed in a neighbours garden where their Bracco was leaping about and barking it's head off as usual.
I saw the hawk a number of other times during the afternoon, chasing this and that, but surprisingly I didn't see her getting mobbed, infact the sky was really empty of any bird. Unlike when buzzards fly over and get mobbed by crows and gulls almost to death, the skies were void.
I spoke with one of my neighbours who is in his seventies and in his words, an ex-hunter, he said that at this time of year it is quite common to see them, and the short toed eagles too though they are easy to define, like big white buzzards that cry like cats mewing for milk. Of which I'd even seen one above the rooftops in the centre one morning at around 7.00am, when I was hanging the washing on the terrace. I could hear a hawk screaming it's head off and then she flew up from the street over my head by 2m surrounded by gulls, that kind of thing certainly makes one jump.
So I'll be keeping my camera loaded with film nice and handy, and the long lens on it too.