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At one place in the Hebrides, where we stayed for a few days, we became on very good terms with a gamekeeper who was much troubled by several pairs of Peregrine Falcons that were, with the help of Golden Eagles and other birds of prey, committing sad havoc amongst the Grouse breeding on his beat.
We accompanied him one day on a long journey, which he undertook in order to try to shoot a female Peregrine as she flew from her eyrie, situated in a horizontal fissure running for a yard or two along the face of a gigantic precipice. We climbed to the foot of the cliff, and when the keeper had sufficiently regained his breath to enable him to take aim with tolerable certainty I made a noise to disturb the sitting bird, but in vain, she would not stir a feather. Thereupon our friend drew one of his "wire" cartridges and putting in a smokeless ordinary, straightway fired. The Falcon instantly darted out, and before the reverberations of his first shot had commenced to kiss the rocks across the loch at our feet the keeper had dispatched his second message of lead heavenwards in pursuit of the fleeing bird. But the distance was too great to permit of any damage being done, and after flying round and round high overhead for a little while uttering her wailing alarm note "Kek, kek, kek, kek," the Peregrine came down, boldly alighted on a jutting crag, and watched us calmly from her coign of vantage some three hundred feet above.
Highland gamekeeper and some of his trophies
The cliff could not have been less than four hundred feet in height, and as the eyrie was situated midway betwixt its base and summit the bird was practically out of gunshot, whether approached from the top or bottom.
After we left, the gamekeeper thinking that by the exercise of a little patience lie could destroy the eggs, kept the parent birds off the nest for six consecutive hours, but to no purpose, for the faithful Peregrines ultimately brought off their young ones in safety.
A strange peculiarity of many birds of prey is their unconquerable love for an old breeding haunt. If the female is killed the male flies away, and often returns in an incredibly short space of time with another mate.
Amongst other interesting things which our friend told us about Peregrine Falcons was an instance of two male birds living in perfect harmony with one female. It came about in this way. He had shot a female from her eyrie in a cleft of rock, and placing a trap for the male, discovered a day or two afterwards that he had been in it and taken his departure minus a leg. In a little while this legless bird returned with a male and female, and they all three occupied the old nesting-quarters in the utmost peace.
The same gamekeeper also told us that he had seen one of these birds strike the head clean off a Grouse whilst in full flight by one blow of its powerful wing.
In the spring of 1896 my brother returned to this part of Scotland in the hope of getting a photograph of a Golden Eagle sitting on her eggs, but found it impossible to do so on account of the bird's exceeding shyness, and the fact that he could not command a view of the eyrie from any point at which he could use his telephoto lens.
Adder basking
One day, whilst out with an old game-watcher, he spied an Adder basking in the sunshine close to the path along which they were walking. His companion waxed so loudly eloquent about his prowess in having slain a reptile of the same species a few days before that he was asked to speak low lest the Adder should hear him and be off before he could photograph it. This heathenish admission of ignorance was most unfortunate, and stirred poor Sandy's theological sentiments to their profoundest depths. Affecting a great air of surprise he puffed in his beard, and with a fine mixture of scorn and sorrow exclaimed -"Och, mon, did ye niver read the Scriptures? Talk of an Adder hearing ye, indeed!" - doubtless having the natural history of the fourth and fifth verses of the fifty-eighth Psalm in his mind: "The deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charming never so wisely."
The foregoing picture of the reptile was made before it was added to a long list of victims in our friend's mental calendar of destruction.
On the occasion of this second visit a pair of Peregrine Falcons were breeding at the far end of the beat, eleven miles away across the mountains and as the gamekeeper and his watcher were going to pay the place a visit in order to try to shoot the depredators, my brother volunteered to accompany them on their expedition. Accordingly they all started out at three o'clock one fine morning for the scene of action.
When they arrived at the cliff they discovered that the female would not be driven from her charge by any noise they could make by hand-clapping or shouting, so it was arranged that the watcher should frighten her off by firing his gun. This was done, and she instantly fluttered out. Bang! bang! bang! went three shots, and away flew the Falcon fatally wounded, according to the verdict of her would-be slayers.
They now descended to a cottage some little distance below, and waited to see whether the male bird would turn up to take his share of the labours of incubation, in a little while he flew into the eyrie, and the keepers crept stealthily towards the place. As soon as they arrived at a satisfactory point one of them cried out, and their chance came. Four barrels were emptied in a skyward direction, but despite this liberal expenditure of lead the Peregrine sailed away, apparently none the worse.
Both birds subsequently returned to the eyrie as full of life and mischief as when they left it.
The Merlin, or "Stone Falcon," as it is called in some parts of the country, is the smallest and pluckiest winged enemy the moorland gamekeeper has to contend with. It breeds in the deep heather and preys upon young Grouse and small birds, which are plucked on little "knowes" at some distance from the nest, round which there is hardly a feather to be seen. Last summer we were shown a nest on the Westmorland hills containing four eggs, and succeeded in inducing the farmer, on whose property it was situated, to spare them and the young ones, which were subsequently hatched, and of which we made a photograph.
I have canvassed the opinions of many intelligent gamekeepers of wide experience upon the vexed question of killing hawks and owls, and although my sympathies are with the birds, I must admit that their arguments in defence of their action is, so far as they are concerned, unanswerable. They say "We are poor men hired expressly to preserve game for those who love the sport of shooting, and as game and vermin don't thrive together we are obliged to look after the survival of the most profitable."
"I have no particular ill-will towards the birds you name," said one old fellow, "but is it likely that I can allow my own sentiment, or that of other folks whom I do not even know, to rob my wife and children of their bread-and-butter?"
Another said: "Now, look here, sir, people talk a lot of nonsense about the innocence of the Kestrel, which is really as bad a hawk as flies. I have known one keep on harrying my young Pheasants until he had carried off twenty-four, which would have been worth something like a pound a-piece to my "guv'nor" if they had lived to be shot at. He was so artful that I could never get within shot of him. I have seen the rascal stoop and pick up a chick, and when I have fired my gun off drop it again from fear. In some cases the little creature would run back to its foster-mother in a coop, apparently none the worse for the adventure, but in others the bird would die from its injuries."
Other keepers have told us similar woeful tales about the Kestrel's depredations. It is shot as it leaves its nest, and occasionally trapped.
Young merlins
Kestrel in trap
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