Peregrines in tandem trigger a fear flock

Claxton, Norfolk Wigeon boil up from the pools and the white lines across the males' wings flash in the grey waves of their panic

I am in heaven in recent days. Buckenham marshes, across the river, is a mosaic of temporary splashes and mud-edged pools and, from the Yare's raised bank, I can see how it's smothered in late-winter pre-migration waders and wildfowl. All the flocking thousands are in turn the trigger for the presence of harriers and peregrines.

While the former circle continuously over the marsh, swinging and twisting in cold air, the peregrines are no more than ghosts, spooking the others into wild free-ranging chaos. However, I did have one extraordinary sighting: on the evening of the new moon, a male and female peregrine spearing in tandem towards the southern horizon. Both closed their wings into a long stoop and they fell across the sky until I could see them only as two unequal-sized drops of mercury, pulled by gravity into an ellipse.