Rising early, finding nothing out there at first but the bracken and the cold wind coming in from the west, howling between the granite and pushing my bones sideways into the landscape – catching tantalising calls, from where? – gone before any chance of a sighting – I am up here in the Dark Peaks looking for Ring Ouzel though I suspect it is too early still for them to be here yet – even so each squeak or chant from either side of me is an invitation to freeze, scan the broken heather and the weather-beaten rocks below Stanage Edge for any tell-tale sign of the secretive bird – when the wind changes direction I get some feeling back in my fingers and the silence is extreme, the constant rush in my ears now gone I feel closer to this place, one sense closer of course.
I angle my way crossways from the edge, where the rocks fall dramatically away toward the road below, where hikers are beginning to ruminate on their day’s trek and cheap mountaineers come up for practice (I note, disrupting the very habitats they’ve been asked not to on various signs in the area) - from the south, in the shallow vale behind the edge, gazing back toward the mirage of Sheffield I spot two forms moving low over the heather, weaving fast and their blemished blue-grey plumage is a giveaway – a pair of Peregrine Falcons beating down the wind headlong, head on (no other bird can fight it – grim, harsh - this morning, only these aerodynamic beauties) toward the furthest outcrop of rock that I can see; the lead male scoots himself up in an almost vertical climb, the wind pushing him back at an acute angle, he turns so that it is then tailing him and he plummets fast out of sight, closely followed by the female whose path is less accurate and she simply wings her way over the edge and disappears there. The air grows warmer – I chant into my solitude some awed thanks.
Stanage Edge, Derbyshire 9th March 2007
I angle my way crossways from the edge, where the rocks fall dramatically away toward the road below, where hikers are beginning to ruminate on their day’s trek and cheap mountaineers come up for practice (I note, disrupting the very habitats they’ve been asked not to on various signs in the area) - from the south, in the shallow vale behind the edge, gazing back toward the mirage of Sheffield I spot two forms moving low over the heather, weaving fast and their blemished blue-grey plumage is a giveaway – a pair of Peregrine Falcons beating down the wind headlong, head on (no other bird can fight it – grim, harsh - this morning, only these aerodynamic beauties) toward the furthest outcrop of rock that I can see; the lead male scoots himself up in an almost vertical climb, the wind pushing him back at an acute angle, he turns so that it is then tailing him and he plummets fast out of sight, closely followed by the female whose path is less accurate and she simply wings her way over the edge and disappears there. The air grows warmer – I chant into my solitude some awed thanks.
Stanage Edge, Derbyshire 9th March 2007
