Dark cloud covers the top of the hill and cold rain falls as fine mist. The dirty white shapes of black-headed, common and herring gulls move overhead against the grey sky, arced wings pumping up and down as they fly into the wind, towards the silhouette of Arundel castle on the hill in the distance, and the sea beyond.
Two large, female kestrels are skirmishing above a field where sheep are grazing. One hovers above the other, dropping down until they look as though they’ll clash. The lower bird darts away, turns and climbs, and then hovers. But the other falcon isn’t satisfied and chases after it again, until the pursuer wins the territorial battle and resumes hunting. The defeated bird flaps away, and out of sight.
I walk up the hill, along the slippery chalk track. The sky is brightening. I hear the scratchy calls of red-legged partridges across the valley. Streams of starlings and small birds – finches, linnets and buntings – weave up and down in the wind, wave after wave of them. I scan the hedgerows and trees on the other side of the valley with my binoculars, watching for anything that might have scared them. Two carrion crows are dive-bombing something hidden behind a line of hedge. The two birds take it in turns to swoop again and again. Finally, a large brown hen harrier lifts into the air. It has a white rump and the dark bars on its tail that give adult female and young hen harriers the nickname “ringtails”, but this one has a slight orangey tint to its underparts, so it’s a juvenile. A red kite, and then another – always curious birds – come to investigate the harrier. They take over from the crows and harass it. The harrier raises its wingtips above its head and rises into the wind. More manoeuvrable than the kites, it twists in the air and slips past them, before dropping on to the ground again, further downhill.
While I watch it, more flocks of small birds fly past, and, sure enough, another large bird of prey – a second ringtail hen harrier, this time a browner adult female – flaps into view, pausing briefly in the headwind, before swooping on down the valley.
