Dark shadows tumble across the hillside. The clouds are being hurried along by the wind, and the rain is subsiding. A chattering flock of linnets bounces from hedge to hedge, across the shining, wet chalk track in front of me. In the middle of the field is a brown shape, like a large mound of mud. It shifts its position every few minutes. Looking through binoculars, I see it’s a brown hare, hunkered down in the ground, its long ears flat against its head and over its back, munching the grass. It shifts its position again, still chewing, but always scanning the horizon.
A buzzard swoops in and lands a few metres from the hare. It struggles, flapping hard, as if trying to hold on to the ground in the wind, and then it lowers its wings. It has caught something – a small mammal, presumably – but I can’t see what it’s mantling in the grass. It begins to eat, snatching at the prey with its bill. The hare sits up, still chewing, and watches the buzzard.
A red kite circles over the field, flicking its forked tail from side to side in the wind, maintaining position, before it drops to the ground between the buzzard and the hare. The buzzard hops backwards from its prey, hesitant, not knowing quite how to react to the new arrival at first. Then the buzzard raises its wings and, flapping quickly, lifts its talons up towards the interloper. The kite responds, and the two clash, before tiring, falling back and then launching at each other again.
The kite loses ground and drifts backwards towards the hare, which rears up on its hind legs but holds its ground. The two birds continue to fight, kicking their feet at each other again and again. Finally, it’s the kite that concedes, and it lifts up and away over the fields. The hare, still upright, watches the buzzard, which suddenly lunges towards it. The hare turns and gallops away on its long legs, and disappears into the margin of the field, leaving the triumphant buzzard alone.
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