i32 PEREGRINES IN LOVE 



The eyrie is a hundred feet down the 

 cliff-face, upon a narrow ledge. For years 

 their young have been taken by the Tiger, 

 a small, wiry man who, descends by a rope 

 attached to a driven crowbar, swings 

 inwards to the ledge, and is hauled to the 

 top with the young falcons in a basket. 

 Yet every year when the celandines come 

 the falcons' courtship begins, ending only 

 when the scent of the wild thyme fades 

 and the sea-thrift rusts with autumn's decay. 

 They hunt together, ranging afar. Their 

 stoop is terrible to behold, so swift and 

 shattering its ending. It may be at a 

 rabbit which ventures forth from the holes 

 of the swarded slopes, at a stock-dove beating 

 speedy flight from Lundy Island, or at an 

 immigrant swallow flying from alien wastes 

 to the shore and sanctuary. Nothing is 

 immune from ravage save the larger gulls 

 and the sombre ravens, who croak defiance 

 from their aerial soughing. 



The peregrines raid from their base upon 



