This is not the only instance in our experience of eagles hunting before the dawn. We recall several others. Apparently, if pressed by hunger, eagles start business early—almost as early as we do ourselves.
Spotted Eagle (Aquila naevia).—This also, like the last, is scarcely a Spanish species; but a beautiful example, heavily spotted, was shot in September in the Pinar de San Fernando by our friend Mr. Osborne of Puerto Sta. Maria. It was one of a pair.
Peregrine and Partridge.—Corral Quemado, Jan. 27, 1909. While posted on a mesembrianthemum-clad knoll during a big-game drive, troops of partridges kept streaming out from the covert behind. Their demeanour struck both me and the next gun posted on a knoll 200 yards away. Across the intervening glade, almost bare sand but for a stray tuft of rush or marram-grass, the partridge ran to and fro in a dazed sort of way, crouching flat as though terror-stricken, or standing upright, gazing stupidly in turn. None dared to fly, though some were so near they could not have failed to detect me. The mystery was solved when a peregrine swept close overhead and made feint after feint: yet not a partridge would rise. Well they knew that the falcon would not strike on the ground; but what a “soft job” it would have been for a goshawk or marsh-harrier! Presumably partridge discriminate between their winged enemies and in each case adapt defence to fit attack.
An interesting scene was terminated by a lynx trotting out by my neighbour, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, who might thus have been taken unawares; only ambassadors are never believed to be so, and on this occasion the spotted diplomat certainly got the ball quite right, behind the shoulder.
Marsh-Harrier (Circus aeruginosus).—Over dark wastes resound “duck-guns sullenly booming.” Thereat from reed-bed and cane-brake awaken roosting harriers, quick to realise the import. It is long before their normal “hours of business,” but these miss no chances, and soon the hidden gunner descries spectral forms drifting in the gloom—all intent to share his spoils. Watch the robbers’ methods. In the deep a winged teal is making away, almost swash. The raptor feints again and again, following the cripple’s subaquatic course; but he never attempts to strike till incessant diving has worn the victim out. Then—so soon as the luckless teal is compelled to tarry five seconds above water—instantly those terrible talons close like a rat-trap. Next comes a lively wigeon, merely wing-tipped; but the water here is shoal and the hawk dare not close. For the volume of mud and spray thrown up by those whirling pinions would drench his own plumage. The wigeon realises his advantage and sticks to the shallow—the raptor ever trying to force him to the deep. The end comes all the same, though the process of tiring-out occupies longer—sooner or later, down drop the yellow legs—there is a moment of strenuous struggle and the duck is lifted and borne ashore. Should no land be near, the branches of a submerged samphire will serve for a dining-table. Within five minutes nought is left but empty skin and clean-picked bones.
Obviously any attempt to seek dead at a distance or to recover cripples is labour lost—once they drift, or swim, or dive, to the danger-radius instantly the chattel passes to the rival “sphere of influence.”
As early as February (and sometimes even in January) the abounding coots begin to lay. The marsh-harrier notes the date and becomes a determined oologist. Over the everlasting samphire-swamp resounds the reverberating cry of the crested coot, Hoo, hoo, Hoo, hoo, so strikingly human that one looks round to see who is signalling. Presently you hear the same cry, but wailing in different tone and temper. That is a coot defending hearth and home against the despoiler; and bravely is that defence maintained. With a glass, one sees the coot throw herself on her back and hold the hawk at bay, striking out right and left, for she has powerful claws and can scratch like a cat. Often the assailant is fairly beaten off; or should the fight end without visible issue, probably the coveted eggs have been hustled overboard in the tussle. Then it amuses to watch the harrier’s frantic efforts to recover the sunken prizes from the shallows.
Great Spotted Cuckoo (Oxylophus glandarius).—A striking rakish form, this stranger from unknown Africa silently appears in Spain during the closing days of February or early in March. On the fifth evening of the latter month, while rambling in the bush on the watch for “some new thing,” a hawk-like figure swept by and perched on the outer branches of a thorny acacia. When shot, the bird dropped a yard or so, then clutching a bough with prehensile zygodactylic claws, hung suspended with so desperate a hold that it was with difficulty released. Waiting a few minutes, a harsh resonant scream—cheer-oh, thrice repeated—announced the arrival of the male, which fell winged on a patch of bog beyond. Ere we could reach the spot the bird had run back, regained the outer trees, and was climbing a willow-trunk more in the style of parrot than cuckoo. The beak was used for steadying, and so fast did it climb that we had to ascend after it.
The beak in this species opens far back, giving a very wide gape—colour inside pink, deepening to dark carmine. We sketched and preserved both specimens, see p. 41 and above.