Country diary: the charged stillness of the kestrel

Kinder Scout, Derbyshire Kestrel numbers may be in decline but we saw maybe half a dozen hanging in the updraft or plummeting into peat groughsThe perfect wild camping place: an obliging flat spot next to a horseshoe-shaped meander where the stream has carved out a tall bank from the soft shale grit, offering water close to hand and shelter from the wind. Best of all, our tents face towards a slope covered in reefs of purple heather that are being prowled by a kestrel. Though dinner consists of a bag of rehydrated dust, the opportunity to eat while watching a wild bird at work without hurry or distraction makes it feel positively luxurious.I never fail to be captivated by kestrel flight; the suspenseful hovering, then the sudden swoop, that combination of charged stillness and sudden action that Gerard Manley Hopkins thrilled to in Windhover: "High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing... / then off, off forth on swing, / As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend." Over an hour or so it makes several apparently unsuccessful plunges into the heather before finally reappearing with a vole in its talons. Continue reading...