Thief

I wasn't sure what there would be to see today as it was pretty wild on top of the moors. However, the red kites were about as well as a kestrel, which I regularly see but he tends to shoot off pretty quickly.

Today, before we were noticed, we managed to sneak into the bracken (which has turned crisp and brown remarkably quickly). Little Dog has become quite patient at bird watching and we sat in a room of high fern, sheltered from the wind for about half an hour, just observing.

The kestrel was on a steep slope on the opposite side of a shallow valley. It regularly flew a few feet in the air, hovered and alighted on a variety of perches close by. Suddenly, one of the All Blacks swooped in and out with the kestrel then in hot pursuit. It was too far away to see exactly what was going on but, after a noisy tousle, the kestrel continued its original activity.

It wasn’t until I got home and inspected my photos that I could see lunch had been well and truly snatched.