Friday, September 12: daybreak
The half moon was high and bright overhead while that morning star in the east seemed to be almost dancing against the just-lightening sky.
I had settled into my camp chair, insulated cup in hand, content and alone in faint, building light, sipping a steaming cuppa joe, listening to the soft hiss and gurgles of the river below, punctuated by the occasional slash and swirl of a smallmouth bass taking some unseen prey off the lazy river’s surface, interspersed here and there with the halting, awakening notes of a Canyon Wren hunting morning-chilled spiders and offering commentary somewhere in those emergent, rocky cliffs across the water.
Behind me, to the north and east a small flock of Canada Geese appeared, first, to my ears over the hilly, canyon horizon, and then, having gained my attention and turned me their direction, to my curious eyes; ten geese in simple formation, one stair-stepped side of an aerodynamic chevron.
As they flew nearer and nearer, clattering their obvious relief and shared ties, a slightly larger group appeared on the horizon as well, another, dozen, very vocal honkers, but these flying in a proper ‘V.’
The first group had passed directly overhead nearly a minute before, semi-circling and surrendering elevation, readying to settle in for a well deserved rest on the autumn-thin, John Day river, a deep-water bend beyond the trees after flying throughout the night.
This second group, also vectoring lower and lower on apparent final approach then suddenly panicked, breaking formation, tumbling and rolling in every direction and nearly colliding with one another.
“What the….?” I whispered to no one but the trees as the bucolic scene transformed into bedlam.
A silhouetted, winged rocket plummeted from above, slicing through the chaotic tumble of wings, feet and feathers, then arcked upward and to the right like a fighter jet to take a second pass. From above and behind them the sound of cool, juniper and sage-thick air being split at nearly hypersonic speed, tucked wings, razor-taloned landing gear and living, feathered, airfoil shaped fuselage. This silhouetted form was coming in so hot and fast that I could actually hear the wind roar; displaced, cool air that stood out distinctly from all the other sounds, a layer atop the others, the wake of a jet without a combustion engine.
Weary from hours of steady wingbeats beneath a September sea of stars, these befuddled geese tried to tighten their ranks for protection while precipitously dropping lower and lower toward the treetops and that deep-water, bend in the river beyond, disappearing from sight behind a scattering of junipers and pines.
The cacophony and confusion continued, a story now unfolding only audibly …until, against the shadowed slope of the layered basalt ridge beyond, the emphatic, unifying voices of a now very tight pack of wings and extended black necks appeared …ten, travel-weary, Canada Geese pushing themselves upward in a clockwise arc, regaining altitude with each determined wingbeat, flying back toward the brightening eastern sky, toward the very direction they’d appeared just minutes before.
By the time my breath began to slow they were gone, disappeared over the eastern, canyon ridge. I could hear the gurgles of the river again. Then a kingfisher; “Plop” and “Splash” into still-inky water and the frustrated chatter following as it flew away with nothing in its bill.
Ten geese. Two were missing. I counted twice as they rose and circled back into the lightening sky and flew away. A dozen companions, now ten.
I knew that Peregrines were fast and I knew that they were fearless in ‘stooping’ on ducks and pigeons, and other birds. But diving into an unsuspecting flock of waterfowl easily three times their size. It had simply never occurred to me that a Peregrine Falcon might take down a Canada Honker, or maybe even two.
It was brilliant, really, flying high above a flock of night-flight, weary geese, just as they were ready to rest, as they were surrendering altitude and searching for a safe place to put down for a migratory rest, a daytime of feeding and sleeping, bobbing in the calm, food rich waters or hunkering down on a pebbled beach.
Stooping from above and behind in first light means they never see you coming, weary and just beginning to celebrate, until you hit, two-hundred to two-hundred and forty miles an hour, an extended, curved talon slashing some mortal gash as it streaks past an outstretched neck, a rocket bird dispatching a fall-fattened goose large enough to feed it for days.
I waited, arguing with myself, reluctant to interrupt a feeding victor and reticent to catch a chill in the dew laden, waist-high grass and brush, but eventually set down my coffee, donned my binoculars and picked up my camera, then headed off in the direction where all the chaos had resolved itself beyond my seeing eyes. I walked nearly two miles in a haphazard grid, scanning the land and water for signs of impact or an immense, feathered carcass, or a feeding falcon atop its most recent prey.
The sun was well up and the world warming when I made my way back to camp, to a half cup of now, luke-warm coffee, a slightly stale, old fashioned donut and thoughts of stringing up my fly rod for a tangle or two with some bass.
I found no signs of a perished goose in my daybreak wander and no further evidences of the brilliant, hunter-tactician who opened my eyes at the beginning of a wonder-filled day. Just those two missing geese from that Phoenix flock, rising back into a lightening sky.
Wonder and disbelief…
Peregrine; the one you don’t see coming.
The one whose rocket wake I cannot stop hearing.
I love your effortless-seeming (but actually very athletic) writing, a blend of sensory details - sounds, tastes, shifts of the light, and knowledgeable interpretation. To see or hear something and know that it was remarkable far beyond what was observed ( the ploy of the peregrines and what that meant for their continued existence and that of their progeny)…well, by god, that’s a gift to any reader. I thank you. Almost as good as being there at your elbow, smelling the hot coffee, listening to the plashy landings of tired geese, and that skin-tingling hiss and rush of sudden death. These are the moments that fuse forever with our synapses, burning right into the electrochemical mystery of brain, heart and spirit. Yep. These are the truly “major events” we will recall as we lie in our dying husks, the experiences that were ours and ours alone, flashes of beauty, terror and insight.
Just one niggling editorial aside. “Arced” has no “k”.
Last week, I was sitting at my desk at home talking (online) with a group of librarians. Suddenly, a rush of wings and floating feathers appeared outside my window. The local Cooper's hawk flew in, nabbed a song sparrow eating from my finch feeder, and flew back to the trees with its prey in its talons. It was breathtaking and horrifying in equal measure. I explained what I had just seen, and one of the people said, "so it's a bird feeder in more than one way." Funny :) I left the meeting humming, Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins. Life can be so unexpected.