The pile of feathers in her talons had been a black phoebe a minute ago, itself hawking insects along the cliff edge. I had been watching this peregrine preening on one of her favorite perching ledges high over the sea. She would twist her head impossibly around, reaching over her back to straighten feathers or perhaps chase an unwanted visiting insect. Then she would fluff up, sometimes lifting a foot into that Sumo wrestler pose peregrines sometimes adopt. Fierce, huge, powerful.

She too had been watching, for suddenly she was off, racing low under the brow of rocks, zooming out of sight. I thought perhaps she had seen the male, for the two were a pair getting ready to nest in one of the many cavities lining the cliffs below me.

But no, this was turnabout for the phoebe. And its end. The hawker hawked by the supreme predator that is every peregrine falcon. The male was around somewhere, but this time hunger had motivated her flight. She knew he would find her when the time for mating that morning was right. 

Fortunately for me, she had come back with her prey to another favored ledge, one even closer to where I stood watching this little life and death drama. I say little, but that is a matter of perspective, isn’t it? It’s import differs for me, for the peregrine, for the phoebe and for the hundreds of insects whose fate is now altered from what it would have been had the black phoebe lived to some other end.

The peregrines had paired up about eight months ago, this male chasing off the father of her clutch of last year and killing the chicks. However, they did not manage to raise young of their own, but this is a new year, and they are trying again. The two birds have been mating each morning for the past five weeks now, and during the last few days, the female has been exploring for the perfect nesting site.