296 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



the appropriateness of the appellation. I pointed 

 it out to a friend, and we stood watching it 

 together. For exactly seventeen .minutes it kept 

 the same position, almost as steadily as if it had 

 been suspended by a string from above. Occa- 

 sionally it made very slight movements with the 

 wings, but these never amounted to even a half- 

 beat. After watching the bird for about five 

 minutes, my friend denied that it was a bird. 

 No bird could keep a place in the air like that, 

 and he was quite sure it was a kind of boy's 

 kite cut out in the shape of a bird. He was still 

 searching the vicinity for the boy who held the 

 string when the kestrel dropped down on a very 

 steep slope into one of the trees on the bank. 

 Five minutes later it ascended again, and began 

 hovering at the same height a little farther to the 

 west, soon, however, to drop down with the wind 

 to its old post over the swamp. In all probability 

 it reckoned this bit good for a mouse. But it 

 did not get one, and after another ten minutes of 

 hovering it moved away in a leisurely fashion in 

 the direction of a neighbouring wooded hill. 



This particular kestrel, I have said, hardly 

 moved its wings as it hovered. At the time a 

 steady and pretty strong breeze was blowing from 

 the west, and this, of course, helped it to main- 

 tain its position without wing -work. But the 

 kestrel will hover in a dead calm, and when, to 

 maintain its position, it has to beat its wings with 

 great speed. This is its habitual way of searching 

 the ground, and it is doubtless an adaptation to 

 the habits of the kind of prey it chiefly hunts. 



