# The Peregrine Falcon at the Eyrie/Introduction

Young Twenty-Nine Days Old.
Chapter I.
Introduction.
Now that the Sea Eagle and the Osprey are extinct, mainly through the depredations of egg-collectors, and the Golden Eagle is only tolerated in parts of Scotland where sportsmen find the bird useful in thinning down the grouse and hares that interfere with deer-stalking, the Peregrine Falcon is the grandest bird of prey we have left in England. The following account is based on field notes made during three successive springs at the same eyrie, and as their full relation involves a lot of monotonous reiteration, I will try and combine the salient facts of all three years in their proper order, so as to give a connected account from the date of hatching to the time when the young leave the eyrie. The full notes will, I hope, appear later in the Zoologist. My friend, Smith Whiting, whose bird photographs are a joy to all his intimates, holds strong views against the publication of any accounts of rare birds, as this, in his experience, only serves to betray them to egg-collectors, who really, in their lust for the eggs of such, seem to be born stamp-collectors who have, unfortunately, missed their true vocation. I do so, however, in the hope that my narrative may raise new friends for the Peregrine Falcon and other rare birds, and so lead to their better protection. A simple method these may employ is to wet each egg and then scrawl all over it with a violet marking-ink pencil. This has no prejudicial effect on incubation, but renders the egg useless to collectors, as the violet marks are more indelible than the natural blotches.
To those who, like myself, have never seen a wild Peregrine before those figured here, I may say that it is a bird about the size of a rook or crow; that when seen on the ground its general build and style of walk suggest a parrot; and that, as it flies, it looks like a pigeon with rather a long tail. The female is an inch or two ​taller than the male, and of more massive build, and in olden times, when falconry was the fashion and the Peregrine was the favourite of kings, she was called the Falcon and her less powerful mate the Tiercel, because he is, roughly, one-third smaller. We found this dominance of the female a marked feature of their domestic life, so that suffragettes could not choose a bird more suited to them as a totem, for the Falcon is nearly always away hunting, while the Tiercel stays at home and minds the babies.
In the feathered world there are many different races, and as occupation stamps men into different classes, so is it possible to trace their likenesses among birds. The eagle has from time immemorial been looked upon as the king of birds, and the Peregrine is of the blood royal. There has been a movement of late to dethrone the eagle and replace him by the raven, who is undoubtedly the brainiest of them all. His family are the great legal fraternity among birds; nimbleness of wit mingled with audacity characterise them all, so that the very first time that I observed the hoodie crow at home I was struck with his laughable resemblance to a barrister in wig and gown. There was the same keen eye for the shortcomings of others, and the general look of mental superiority to ordinary folk. Possibly it was his sidling jump and hoarse chuckle while punishing the careless gull by taking her unguarded egg that sounded like an ill-timed jest during the administration of justice; but anyhow, the raven tribe do not appeal to me as kings. There is a want of dignity about them which is immediately apparent when you see the wild Peregrine at close quarters. For here you have the embodiment of quiet majesty. His quiet dignity, or the haughty stare with which he surveys the world from his stronghold, or the quick scowl with which he looks at something that displeases him, may not convey the deep craft of the raven, but they indicate something nobler—absolute fearlessness, with a quiet reserve of power that enables you to realise that this is the bird whose swoop is the terror of the bird-world; the bird that shoots down like a bolt from the blue, kills in mid-air with one blow from its talons and, binding to a bird as heavy as itself, is well on its way home to its eyrie and its whimpering young before the shower of scattered feathers has had time to reach the ​sea. If, after this, readers complain that the Peregrines as figured disappoint them in not looking sufficiently fierce, I can only plead in extenuation that these photographs, being taken in the eyrie, are really nursery pictures, and that I can imagine even Lord Kitchener might lose his sternness under such circumstances. Although in my belief the Tiercel is fiercer and bolder than the Falcon, yet in the relaxation of the eyrie I have seen him, when wailing to the Falcon to bring him food for the young, assume a whimsically childlike and plaintive expression that might have evoked sympathy from a dove. Those who remain unsatisfied—and I hope there will be many—have only to spend a little time and trouble in making a hiding-shed and finding an eyrie, and then they will see something far better—the birds themselves.
Before coming to the results, a brief record of the three years' operations may not be out of place. In 1910 I worked from one of my late friend, Hugh Earl's tents, a self-supporting gipsy tent in which the arching canes are fixed above into a pair of ridge boards, and below into a wooden frame, so that when erected and covered with its cover of Willesden canvas, it can be easily carried about, like a huge bandbox, and placed on any flat surface. On first examining the eyrie, the difficulty was where to place it; there seemed only two sites, and both of them bad. One was just in front of the eyrie, where, among the almost perpendicular rocks about twenty feet below the top of the precipice, there was a flat, earthy space ten feet long by five wide. This was at once rejected as being much too close to the birds and because it was four feet lower than the eyrie. The alternative site was a flat rock amid the jumble that formed the edge of the precipice; but although flat it was on an incline, and though giving an excellent view into the eyrie below, it was nearly thirty feet away. However, it was a case of Hobson's choice, so the tent, having been painted to match its surroundings, was left there for a few days to accustom the birds, while a varied assortment of rocks, placed inside, prevented it from being blown away. Then I spent six most uncomfortable hours in it. Though it looked fairly right from the outside, once inside it was like lying on the side of a roof among a lot of loose rocks that threatened an avalanche with every movement. On being released I found that ​some knife-edged rocks alongside on the edge of the precipice might be bridged with planks and so make a horizontal platform for the tent. This being done, I next spent great part of a sunny day watching the flies buzzing about an empty eyrie, the young being asleep behind the rocks. I came to the conclusion that probably most of the feeding was done early in the morning and late in the day, and that if I wanted to see anything I must sleep in the tent. My friends demurred on account of the risk of the tent being blown bodily away with me, should a gale spring up in the night. But after our boatman had lashed it to his heart's content, with a few additional pounds of new rope, to the adjacent rocks, I was allowed to have my own way and found, as I expected, that at sunset life in the eyrie began, and was carried on next day as if no one were present. But after two more watches I found, on developing my negatives, that the game was not worth the candle, as I only got the birds the size of a bluebottle. So at our next visit we came provided with trestles four feet high, and with some trepidation we erected the tent face to face with the eyrie. I intended leaving it unoccupied for two days, but bad weather lengthened this to a week. By this time the young were ready to leave the eyrie, and I had the disappointment of seeing nothing, but of hearing the old birds lure the young away to be fed somewhere out of sight.
The year 1911 opened with good prospects. By the middle of April there were four eggs in the eyrie, and a new eyrie had been found on an adjacent island, also with four eggs in it, which we proposed to devote to the kinematograph. But the egg-collector had picked up our trail and we had, unfortunately, omitted to pencil the eggs; so when it was too late we found out that by bribing a boatman, he had cleared out the new eyrie and had taken half the eggs out of the old one. Why he left two can only be surmised; but possibly the boatman dreaded what might happen if we arrived and found ourselves without occupation, and the collector probably sold his six eggs as two complete clutches. It may be gathered that there is not much love lost between bird-photographers and egg-collectors. On the principle of what is fair in love and war, collectors pass themselves off as photographers ​and so obtain entrance to bird sanctuaries whose gates are afterwards found closed by the bird-photographer. On one occasion an individual at Ravenglass aroused the suspicions of the watcher owing to the number of nests opposite which he erected his camera, which, when forcibly examined, proved to be full of little drawers lined with cotton-wool, an accessory not listed by the leading camera-makers. That we sometimes manage to turn the tables is, I think, shown by the following incident: A friend of mine was watching some Peregrines in the wilds of Northumberland. One day the landlord of the little inn at which he stayed told him that two gentlemen had arrived from London who were egg-collectors. At my friend's request no mention was made to them of his real occupation, but they were casually told that he knew more about the birds of the district than anyone else. The collectors soon introduced themselves and gladly accepted his guidance. Arrived at the eyrie, he advised them to wait a few days, as this Falcon always laid four eggs, but would probably desert if they took the one egg they found lying there. During the interval he, turned egg-collector, visiting many of the outlying farms, and then secretly resorted to the kitchen, where he boiled a number of small hens' eggs of the desired shape in a saucepan, with sliced onions. As a result, he picked out four most beautifully blotched and browned eggs, and at dawn substituted them for the Peregrines' eggs. He then at breakfast told the collectors of his early stroll, and opined they need wait no longer. They started off immediately in order to be able to catch the midday mail, and having seen them safely off to London on their return, he replaced the real eggs in the eyrie and had the satisfaction of learning later that the Peregrines brought off four young that year. He has often wondered what the collectors said when they tried to blow their eggs.
I had noticed in 1910 that the Peregrines did not like the flapping of the canvas of the tent, so during the winter I evolved a portable hiding-shed in sections, made out of three-ply, and had the good fortune to interest a patient of mine, Mr. J. H. Bateman, who was making a protracted convalescence, and he made me the shed to my design. But nevertheless, 1911 turned out badly. I had intended starting a week earlier, but I was unable to leave, and ​eventually, owing to rough weather making it unsafe to land the shed, it was a week later than the previous year when we put it up. The shed itself was quite satisfactory, but a new focal-plane shutter, in which I had invested four pounds, was apparently unfinished when finally delivered a day or two before I started, and ruined most of my exposures. The weather only permitted three watches at the eyrie, and, to crown all, the young left it a week sooner, as, owing to there only being two of them, they were more abundantly fed and developed more rapidly, a fact I had previously noted with ravens.
In 1912 the shed was erected within two days of hatching, and as I had invited several bird-watchers to join me, we were enabled, by a system of daily reliefs, to have the birds under constant observation for thirteen days and nights. Of the notes thus acquired I am including those of my friend, H. B. Booth, both because they give a fair idea of life in the shed and because I think they will make it obvious how valuable such a contrivance is for those who, untrammelled by the cares of photography, wish to use it for simply observational purposes. Its cost, however—the material alone came to over three pounds—will, no doubt, prevent its adoption generally by ornithologists, who seem to prefer the inexpensive blowpipe and its immediate and tangible results.