Burnished Copper

Burnished copper glinting in brilliant mid morning autumn sunshine, a cock pheasant strutting deliberately in slow motion on his way back from my feeding point under a lone hawthorne bush. Between the stems of the broken hedge line between winter wheat and lush green rape he was following his path until Emma appeared in the sky. The cock disappeared, had he clamped, had he retraced his steps? My female peregrine climbed hard, 300feet on her first pass into a huge out swing downwind, climbing back into the wind from nearly a mile away she was over 1000 feet on her second pass but still not satisfied she took another circle and was half as high again when she held station, beating with half closed wings into the southerly breeze above the working dogs.

The younger cocker ran up the hedge but nothing appeared, he disappeared into a bramble patch, the obvious retreat for our cock but still nothing appeared so he took another beat and repeated the exercise. Meanwhile his older brother, more experienced and used to this part of our ground where he had flushed several birds during his eleven years, he waited until he found fresh scent, then slowly, working deliberately followed across the short grass of the mown headland and on out into the rape. Well grown this year the foliage was almost up to his shoulder, overnight dew sparkling as he disturbed the leaves in the sunlight until with a spraying clatter and cackling call up sprang the cock flushed outwards across the huge field of rape. It was fortunate for us that he was not sure of his direction and drawn by safety he turned a banking arc to the left taking him back over the emerald green freshly germinated winter wheat, powder blue feathers on his back spectacular as he banked in his turn, rocketing upwards to about 100 feet, making his best pace for the small copse half a mile away. 

Over the years it has become my habit to count the seconds of a stoop. A descending teardrop falling, falling, falling through crystal air Emma took fully twelve seconds before she came into attack, enormous roaring speed, outpacing the fleeing cock, she stooped behind and below before she threw up from underneath him, no doubt in his blind spot, talons extending at the last moment to bind to him with ease, the head in her left and breast in her right foot. He was 1400 grams of solid muscle and slashing spurs but her rowing backwards now protected her from the collision with the earth as the cock became her cushion but then quite some adversary on the ground. Emma's grandmother once took a similar bird in almost the same location, it had broken both wings and both legs in the impact but once on the ground it sill managed to give the falcon a serious pasting! Not so today, Emma held firmly to the struggling bird for a few chaotic moments and with an expert bite behind the skull it was soon all up for the cock.

Open mouthed, panting from the exertion, she stood proudly over her prize. The younger cocker sat by her side admiring their conquest, ready for any sudden escape. No need to run, all well in control, circling crows soon left as they saw me approach. A few minutes to regain breath and composure, then plucking began.

East Anglia, end of October, the last of this years pheasant poults are now fully feathered and uniquely this year it still seems like summer!