Commentariat

Guardian Leaders and Reply

From the archive, December 1 1909: This was the day of action and decision, and after to-day nothing in British politics will ever be quite the same

Editorial: After subscription costs many web activities are free and could provide a cushion during recession

Editorial: The backpacker haunt that was among the targets of last week’s terrorist attacks opened for a few hours in a show of back-to-work resilience

Editorial: Painter who liked nothing more than to carry out his work in West London, especially around Hampton Court

Letters: it’s still worrying that Lord Turner seems to believe that the continued growth of aviation is consistent with climate change targets

As I walked along the bank a male kestrel kept fractionally ahead, facing down into the breeze. Its hovering just above eye level was not particularly noteworthy, but its refusal to relinquish one spot of cold air over the dead vegetation did make me reflect. What could it see? Then it went down through the reeds. The cleanliness of its entry was like a paper knife between the flap and the envelope. Back up it came, as if the descent and rise were part of one sweet manoeuvre. Yet, for less than a second, perhaps, there was a slight laboriousness before departure. It was this that enabled me to pick out the pigeon’s-egg-sized bulge in the talons. The yellow scaled feet were so tightly closed over the prey that one sensed the beat had already gone from a tiny heart.

A life had passed so casually. A kestrel had taken its prey and flown off, all in a matter of seconds. A sense of ordinariness was already reassembling itself within the landscape. As I committed it to my notebook, I could find no false sense of drama to inject into the scene. Yet in a 40-year career I’d never seen it before. I doubt I’ll ever witness it again.

For, unmistakably, there it was, the pert upward jut of a wren’s tail in those claws. I’ve trawled the literature. I can find no mention of wren ever falling victim to kestrel before. (Although there is a reference to an occupied wren’s nest lodged in the fabric of a kestrel’s own.) It seemed so improbable that I paced out over the marsh to the exact spot where the falcon had landed and winnowed shreds of down from the body. I have them on my desk as I type these words - the telltale brown, barred flight feathers, so small that in full fan the wings would look nothing larger than a pair of earrings to adorn a pagan.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Today’s corrections

Letters: You describe the former GDR People’s Palace as ‘a glass-fronted eyesore that served as a parliament and recreation centre’

Letter: It is clearly more newsworthy to be a politician than a journalist as Sally Murrer had to make do with only a passing mention

Letter: Debra Bell (Letters, November 27) is wrong to imply that cannabis use is on the increase

Letter: Clearly when horrendous cases like Baby P and the Sheffield family come to public view we should always have the appropriate inquiry into the individual case

Letter: In distancing Iran from the Arab Peace Initiative, Gholamhossein Mahmoudi (Letters, November 28) is correct

Kia Abdullah: The hajj is the perfect opportunity for Muslims to put our anger behind us

Editorial: Why do world leaders tolerate those international equivalents of Leona Helmsley, the tax havens?

Editorial: The arrest and questioning by anti-terrorist officers of Damian Green was a dangerous overreaction

Letters: The Mumbai terror attack has come after a series of terror strikes during the last few months in India

Letters: The atrocious arrest of Damian Green by anti-terrorism police is reminiscent of the Stasi

Letters: In quoting King Duncan’s ‘There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face … ‘ to support his belief that judging character from the face is ‘a dicey business’

Today’s corrections

Rosemary Roach: East Yorkshire

Letters: Your report (Shakespeare is shunned by schools, November 25) suggests the abolition of the key stage 3 Sats tests may tempt schools to marginalise the teaching of Shakespeare

Editorial: An icon of French intellectualism celebrates his 100th birthday, a man whose books are more honoured than read

Letters: I find it a glaring omission that Mark Lawson (Comment, November 27) made no mention of Roger McGough as a possible candidate for poet laureate

Letter: Re deodorant balls. In 2000 a fellow beading enthusiast and I were introduced to a wonderful beading group

From the archives, November 28 1977: My friendly neighbourhood doctor died suddenly the other day