That peregrine as an adjective means ‘foreign’ is testament to the feeling of otherworldliness the raptor seems to exude… a cold, unflinching gaze that is part an assassin’s, part a child’s that is engrossed in unravelling something that turns out to be pretty commonplace in the end… wearing the trademark brooding expression of an apex predator, carrying the trophic burden with a sulky swagger… drumming up dizzy speeds on a whim, an aerodynamic savant, daring gravity as it cuts through a stoic sky…
Over two hundred miles an hour, the fastest animal… that is how it etched itself into human folklore, the falcon, and consequently found itself imprisoned by the jess… in what seems like an ironic twist of fate, diving headlong into captivity… that this mind numbing speed is highly contextual and several other avians have similar, if not greater, talents, that can’t be subjugated to human fancies, is a fact consciously ignored…
This particular individual was our first sighting of a balmy winter morning, the haze slowly receding into the horizon to reveal the misty taupe of Sambhar salt flats… as any predator who is possessive of the fruits of its toil, ‘twas a bit reticent at first, taking off at the slightest sign of our approach, the arid expanse offering no camouflage whatsoever for a bright blue vehicle… after gulping down a few morsels, it finally mellowed, allowing us to ascertain that ‘twas a pigeon that’d found death at the break of dawn…
An hour flew by, the bird dismembering and devouring its prey bit by bit, the onlookers filled with a morbid curiosity towards this theatre of gore, going shutter happy at every piece of bone being yanked off the slain columbid… an infinite expanse of placid beige brought to life by a blood-stained beak and talons savouring their grisly meal…
Why is the macabre in this part of the animal kingdom so venerated? For no other avifauna has been put on a higher cultural pedestal than birds of prey, despite the fact that their entire sense of purpose, and consequently their abilities, are shaped by the sole purpose to kill… of course in the larger biological jigsaw they are but just another piece, yet they seem to tower above, for instance, mammals with the same function in the food chain… perhaps ‘tis the candour with which they go about their business, for there is no guile in their hunting, like those duels of the yore… a clear profession of the desire to kill and the prey given a fair chance to make a break for it…
And ‘tis this adulation it seems that has driven tangible conservation action too… the swiftness with which the peregrine falcon was brought back from the brink of extinction due to pesticides through concerted action matches the bird’s own speed… too bad for the vultures that they don’t have that panache…
We kept stalking the bird as it settled in for a nap after the hearty meal, save for a brief while when a buzzard(with another pigeon kill) diverted our attention… marvelling at the utility of a nictitating membrane till the sun had climbed up to about eleven, and we parted ways, the bird for some shade and the pursuers for a shower…
Musing on a Peregrine falcon, Sambhar, Rajasthan
