Feathered foes
by Tony Greenbank from on (#N29F)
West Cumbria As he watched, he saw the peregrine begin its hair-raising 200mph stoop high above the old steel town
Twice I have seen a peregrine dive at rocket speed, wings folded back, towards a flock of racing pigeons flying unaware below. The latest dramatic occasion was above Bootle, the village that basks below the whale-shaped mass of Black Combe that dominates the coast near Millom. That time the hawk missed by a hair's-breadth, the pigeons scattering like chaff.
Before that, while climbing on Erne Crag above the Rydal Valley in the 1980s, I saw a similar attack. Again the pigeon escaped as feathers flew, though the screes were strewn with the legs that were all that remained of racing birds following previous onslaughts, their ID rings numbered.
Continue reading...