Bog Myrtle & Peat

Floods and more rain. The river spews onto the meadows and the dawn brings a host of herons to the grey pools. They sulk and stride in gangs of eight or ten, and the limpid goop trails a ripple from their hocks. Now and then they’ll jab for a worm or a busted frog, and that’s when you see a killing streak. Their beaks are bayonets, and there’s a well-sprung power behind every lunge. Pity the minnow or the wayward lamprey who is shown up and found wanting in the soupy grass.

Two young falcons wail in the thorns. They’re obsessed with the idea of starlings, and they blink beadily at the flocks which follow the receding water. Starlings make for easy meat, but catching one is no mean feat when you’re young and half daft and your wings are wet and black as felt. So they scream and complain, and the starlings churn up a temptation in the rain.

Sometimes an adult peregrine will come to help these hungry youngsters.A grey shape will stoop in to kill an unwary starling, and then the young falcons drop down from the trees and run loping to their feast like dinosaurs in the heavy grass.