The Peregrine
The wind came up the estuary like a knife, making it hard to keep the telescope still. And harder still to keep on caring about seeing the bird. But he had the grandchild with him, and a promise is a promise. So he kept trying.
At first there was nothing. Though they strained their eyes in turn, squinting into the telescope, the blur of the huge hangar remained resolutely birdless. At that point he almost decided to leave, never mind the lad's protests of disappointment.
Then he saw it. It came up the estuary so fast that even he, who thought he knew about these things, was astonished. In the distance it might have been almost anything. Then, nearer, a pigeon perhaps. And suddenly the anchor shape that never ceases to send a thrill down the spine became characteristically deep-chested, with the air-certainty that spells one bird: Peregrine.
To confirm his identification, the Dunlin and other waders rose, as if a gun had been fired, and scattered across the sky. Contemptuous, the Peregrine shot on up river before turning in an arc that would intoxicate a Spitfire pilot and landing on the balustrade at the end of the hangar. It made you feel you had missed a bit. One moment the airborne scythe, the next the motionless perched bird.
He repositioned the telescope, refocused it, peered through the blur until suddenly, like the appearance of one of those 3-D images, there it was. Magnificent in its stillness and authority, the big falcon.
It took the boy a long time to see it. Looking at images in telescopes is an acquired skill, and with the wind trying to cut them both in half it took some perseverance. But at last the boy got the hang of it. He turned to the old man, his eyes watering in the wind. "That's it, isn't it, Grandpa - a Peregrine?"
The bird sat motionless for over half an hour, until it was no longer a novelty. Yet they couldn't bring themselves to walk away. It seemed indecent.
One last glimpse, the man thought, and bent again to the 'scope. But it was gone, though neither of them had seen it fly. With the warmth of shared experience, they folded up the telescope and set off for home.
That night the boy would dream of a falcon and its mastery of the air.