Female Kestrel, Helsington Barrows Out of the blue, a female kestrel. She illuminates the day. Hovering, she is mantled in shadows. The poise and grace of the falcon as she scans the earth. Angel-messenger in a winter sky. She knows of old the secret life of the place. She swoops, flies low across the slope and alights in larch trees. Hidden, I cannot tell if she has prey.
She is the highlight of a winter's morning. Unexpected. I was seeking winter thrush, heard mistle-thrush and a lone fieldfare, redwing perhaps. The yew trees seemed bare of fruit, those fleshy red arils the birds love.
Then the falcon appears, out of the blue and nothing else is. She arrests time.
She is the highlight of a winter's morning. Unexpected. I was seeking winter thrush, heard mistle-thrush and a lone fieldfare, redwing perhaps. The yew trees seemed bare of fruit, those fleshy red arils the birds love.
Then the falcon appears, out of the blue and nothing else is. She arrests time.
She hovers above the larch trees, against a cold blue sky. Kestrel, intent on hunting, her eyes on the short turf and anthills where voles may hide. Kestrel sightings were daily fare here on Helsington Barrows. Now, this last decade, they appear rarely. She is the more welcome on a fine week-end when winter thrush are silent but for a solitary fieldfare call, only a couple of birds in the tops of the larch trees. Read About Scout Scar for an abundance of fieldfare I have not found for several years now.
Choosing to photograph her, I lose an immediacy of seeing as the camera takes over. And for the rest of the morning I'll be on tenterhooks, eager to download images and see what I have. Here comes the reveal. But first I want to show her against that sweep of blue.
Kestrel shadowed by her own wings. Head bent, eyes intent on the ground as she hunts.
Tilt and twist of wing-tips as she hovers. Sunlight catches a hint of white on the tip of her tail feathers. See the poise and angle of her wings through the sequence.
A falcon hunting. Her raptor's bill sharp against the blue, her eye focused. The poise of her as she rides the air, her tail feathers fanned to catch the wind. She takes me in deep.
Lights Out. Deep Time and the Sparrowhawk. Radio 4. The world falls silent, telling of sparrowhawk. An alarm call and the swiftness of sparrowhawk.
Deep Time and the Sparrowhawk complements today's falcon experience.
Next morning, Chris Watson on Tweet of the Day: redwing. Nomads, seeking food, he reminds us. No whitebeam berries on Scout Scar this year, few yew arils. There are hawthorn which Chris Watson mentions, although I've never seen redwing feeding on hawthorn up here. Redwing and fieldfare are nervous birds, flying into the tops of tall trees when they sense they're being watched. And on the wind-swept escarpment hawthorn are small and stunted.
Tweet of the Day 29 November. Kestrel
Lights Out. Deep Time and the Sparrowhawk. Radio 4. The world falls silent, telling of sparrowhawk. An alarm call and the swiftness of sparrowhawk.
Deep Time and the Sparrowhawk complements today's falcon experience.
Next morning, Chris Watson on Tweet of the Day: redwing. Nomads, seeking food, he reminds us. No whitebeam berries on Scout Scar this year, few yew arils. There are hawthorn which Chris Watson mentions, although I've never seen redwing feeding on hawthorn up here. Redwing and fieldfare are nervous birds, flying into the tops of tall trees when they sense they're being watched. And on the wind-swept escarpment hawthorn are small and stunted.
Tweet of the Day 29 November. Kestrel
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