Page:The peregrine falcon at the eyrie (IA cu31924084757206).pdf/74

 54 coming to her and showing too much interest, she lowered both wings to the ground so as to keep her meal quite private. She persevered for a long time; but, turning away for a moment, I miss the end, as when I look again she is gone. I have just been thinking that I have never seen these birds drink any water; considering the position of the eyrie, it is as well that they require none. Then ensues a long wait; the eyrie is deserted even by the flies; twilight comes and the rocks gradually lose their shadows and solid appearance, becoming a ghostly grey, and the whole scene looks unreal. Just as I am despairing, about 9 p.m., of anything further taking place, I hear a great flapping of wings and, looking out, find all the young in the eyrie gazing eagerly seawards, whimpering and flapping their wings. Then suddenly the whimpering grows louder, the wing-flapping more frantic, and for a moment I catch sight of the Falcon standing on B, holding a gory something in her beak, with two little red legs dangling from it—the headless trunk of a puffin. The next moment she is lost among the flapping wings, wings mottled, as it were, with blobs of cotton-wool. As the flapping subsides, I catch sight of her again in the gloaming. She stands facing me with her young around her, and they are all bowing their heads up and down with a subdued chorus of whimpers. As she stands there, taller and darker than her young, with her black cap, she looks like a cowled monk engaged with his acolytes in some mysterious rite. Eagerly pressing on her, they gradually drive her backwards until all are lost to sight under the rocks; but still the whimpering continues. In a few minutes the young crowd into view again, and I perceive the Falcon on C. She has her back to the eyrie, is staring haughtily towards me and pays no attention to the suppliant crowd behind her. Then she is gone, the whimpering dies out, the young go one by one, the gloom deepens into night and I settle down to sleep with the thunder of the breakers as a lullaby, interspersed with the reedy grunting of the shag coming home late to her nest below me. When I awake in the chill dawn to the thunder of the surf, I find the eyrie grey and silent and turn to the comfort of hot tea from a Thermos, from which I am disturbed, at 3.45 a.m., by loud whimpering, and am just in time to see the Falcon, with some effort, dragging a razorbill