DUCK HAWK 45 



female, wailing in return, flies to meet him and receives the bird in 

 the usual way. Or perhaps his search has been in vain, and he 

 suddenly plunges down from a great height, empty-footed, to resume 

 the watch from his perching tree. Perchance a flicker now appears 

 flying up the valley at a considerable height above the trees, but still 

 below the level of the hawks; they both start out from their trees and, 

 stroking steadily, converge on the unfortunate bird with a speed and 

 deadly earnestness chilling to the onlooker. The female takes the 

 lead. The flicker sees its peril too late, and in a trice the falcon 

 snatches it dead in the air and, turning sharply about, heads back for 

 the cliff while her mate convoys her from behind. She lights on her 

 tree, holding the bird against the branch with one foot, and in another 

 moment flicker feathers are drifting down-wind as she eagerly plucks 

 her booty. Meanwhile the tercel sallies forth again over the valley 

 and this time returns with his bird. There are many variations of 

 this morning scene — the birds may go away hunting together, the 

 male may make his kill near the cliff, or the female may miss her 

 stoop, in which case the tercel often stoops at the same bird — but 

 certain parts of the pattern are quite invariable. In general, the 

 female stays closer to home; if they both chase the same bird, the 

 female makes the first stoop; and she eats the first bird whether she 

 kills it herself or the male brings it to her. 



"Having fed, the hawks are likely to sit quietly for some little time, 

 occasionally wailing to each other, preening their feathers, perhaps 

 lazily stretching first one wing and then the other. At length the 

 tercel starts off his perch and begins to soar and swoop about the 

 cliff, describing a series of figure-eights in the air, sometimes in a 

 horizontal, sometimes a vertical, plane. At times he lights on little 

 shelves and wichews ; again he returns to his tree and wails, or perhaps 

 he soars higher and higher in the air, farther and farther out across 

 the valley, until at last he shuts his wings to his sides and plunges 

 down in a mile-long swoop that brings him back to the cliff. Some- 

 times the falcon accompanies him on these flights, but for the most 

 part she is distinctly passive. The culmination of these flight dis- 

 plays depends much on the weather, but eventually the patient watcher 

 will see an exhibition of flying that is literally breath-taking. I have 

 seen it at many nest sites, but never to better advantage than one 

 beautiful spring morning at Black Rock when a rising southerly gale 

 was whipping along the flanks of Mount Everett. We were hidden 

 in the woods below the south end of the cliff, and the peregrines were 

 quite unconscious of our presence at the time; again and again the 

 tercel started well to leeward and came along the cliff against the 

 wind, diving, plunging, saw-toothing, rolling over and over, darting 

 hither and yon like an autumn leaf until finally he would swoop up 

 into the full current of air and be borne off on the gale to do it all 



