They’re a companionable bunch, the cattle in the field opposite. Keeping close to one another, rumps to the prevailing wind, they wait out each bout of bad weather. Today, though the wind has dropped and the rain has ceased, they’re still sticking together and are grazing in a compact group by the edge of the little pool that appears each winter.
Heads down, they are placidly content in their own cow world and completely oblivious to the life or death struggle taking place about and above them. A merlin has just swerved its way around and between their massive bodies in pursuit of prey that has tried to confuse it by dodging among the cattle. But the ruse fails, and both birds emerge to engage in aerial battle silhouetted against the blank grey sky.
A meadow pipit in a wild flutter of desperate wings is jinking and climbing and jinking again, trying manoeuvre after frantic manoeuvre to evade a pursuer that follows every move. Time after time, it narrowly evades the talons that seek to snatch it from the air. Then, strangely, for the merlin is far faster in straight line flight, the pipit breaks away and flees, only to make an immediate U-turn and head back through the cattle.
There is one more brief glimpse of the hunt low above the field, but it is soon lost to sight as the land slopes away. Yet perhaps eventually the chase was successful, or the merlin found less agile quarry, for not long afterwards it re-appears, flying more slowly and maybe, just maybe – for both distance and fading light make it hard to be sure – clutching something in its talons.
And it’s at this moment that the cattle suddenly come to full alert, heads lifting in unison at the sound of their owner’s vehicle approaching. As it turns into the lane they are galvanised into action, breaking into an ungainly lumbering canter as they follow it down to the gate in the field corner, where they jostle eagerly as they await the treat of the supplementary feed that is about to be delivered.
