I think I saw a Falcon the other day…
I was driving along the motorway when, as I followed the
last long slow curve to the right as I approached my usual exit, I noticed that
perched at the very top of one of the lamp posts, all huddled up against the
bitter cold of a February evening that had snow in the air, what was obviously
a bird.
But it did not have the shape of the more familiar birds
that I might usually see there, the jackdaws, the magpies (salutes), the gulls or the pigeons. It was an altogether more
unusual and rather light grey shape, and this is what my brain did:
“Ooh! That’s an interesting looking bird…”
“It might be a bird
of prey…”
“If it is, I wonder which bird of prey it might be…?”
“Hmmm… It looks a bit like the bird in
“The Maltese Falcon…”
“I wonder what kind of bird it is…?”
(beat...)
(The sound of mental gears grinding ever so slowly...)
(Somewhere deep inside what passes for my brain, a light-bulb begins to glow faintly...)
“Oh…”
“Right…”
When we are in Wales I never tire of the buzzards which seem to sit on almost every fence post. I am a fan of the red kite and the kestrel. A tiny merlin once flew for a while in front of my car as I drove one of the lanes near Aberdaron. Birds of prey - they hold such a fascination.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy bird-watching, although I'm still a bit poor at bird-identification... Somehow the image on the page is still failing to make the leap to the real-life situations... that or my memory is just rubbish, of course...
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