Great privilege to see a falcon on the hunt

A BLACKBIRD can easily teach its young to scratch amongst fallen leaves and uncover grubs and insects; I’ve watched such lessons from kperegrinemy work-room window, the student standing close to the teacher, watching the process intently and waiting for succulent morsels to be popped into its bill.

A thrush can easily teach its young how to cock its head and hear worms burrowing in the lawn. But watching a peregrine falcon teach its young to hunt is a rare privilege, albeit the unfortunate victim of the exercise suffers the same cruel fate as a mouse in the tender mercies of a cat.

I heard the story of such a tutorial from Jim Kennedy, of the Sea Kayaking School at Reen, in West Cork. He’d seen the birds that morning, so the details were fresh in his mind. The parent and the juvenile flew together over the bay, the parent, probably the hen, with a live wood pigeon in its talons. It would release the pigeon, and the young bird would give chase. However, the pigeon was fast enough to evade it. The mother would stoop on the pigeon again, and carry it a short distance before, again, releasing it. Again, the juvenile would have a go, to no avail. Time and time again, the pigeon was caught and then released.

Presumably, her offspring eventually got the message. Stoop on the bird, Junior! You’re a peregrine, not a sparrowhawk, you dumb chick! Hunting methods of sparrowhawks and peregrines are quite different.

In the peregrine’s legendary stoop, it can power down from the sky at — it is said — up to 180 mph and snatch its victim in mid air. The sparrowhawk hunts by rocketing in out of cover, often woodland margins, to grab a bird off a branch or a peanut feeder. It is a consummate dash-and-kill hunter, weaving at high speed through the trees, dodging branches, whipping through gaps, arriving out of the shadows to strike and carry off its prey.

A reader of this column told me of a friend who, while up a ladder painting his house, noticed a nearby sycamore shaking as if King Kong was in the middle, having a bad hair day. Suddenly, a flock of starlings lifted out of the tree but, just as suddenly, dived back in again. At that moment, he saw a big hawk pass overhead, with a wide wingspan.

Perhaps it was a peregrine and the foliage offered safety: if it was a sparrowhawk, hiding in a tree wouldn’t help. The question is, could the starlings (a) recognise which kind of hawk it was and (b) seeing it was a peregrine, realise they would be relatively safe in a tree?

Another story I heard was of a peregrine hunting a tern over a West Cork bay. Every time the peregrine stooped, the tern dived into the water. At last, the peregrine gave up.

Speaking of terns, there were very few in passage on my local bay this year, and this was almost certainly accounted for by a shortage of sandeels. Usually, there are 20 or more family parties spending a few days as they head south for Spain, and then Africa; they may go all the way to Antarctica before heading north again, always following the sun.

The adults plunge vertically into the sea to catch sandeels for their young, which fly with them. Dead guillemot were found on various south coast beaches, starvation the verdict, due to a failure in the summer sandeel shoals. A few years ago, tens of thousands of sea bird died in the Shetlands, because overfishing of sprat and sandeel had taken their source of food.

Now, once again, the long distance migrants face the hazards of unfamiliar skies. As our swallows cross the Mediterranean en route to Africa, Eleonora falcons, much like peregrines, will be awaiting them, with young to feed. Their young are fledged not in Spring, but in late Summer, when the sky is full of migrants, fattened for the trek south.

But some swallows do survive, and may even make the return journey three or four times. A reader told me of finding a dead swallow with a leg ring in Cork in May 2005. It had been ringed near Zaragoza, Spain, in October 2003. It had, almost certainly, been born in Ireland (swallows return to where they were born) and had flown to South Africa and back in 2003 and 2004.

It was back here to breed again when it met its Cat-erloo; killing for the hell of it is a domestic cat speciality. Had a peregrine got it, only the feathers (and a leg with a ring) would have remained.