2 Frightful Goes to Falcon School

Frightful turned back. Chup chased her. He made an awe-inspiring loop and cruised upside down beneath her. Gently he held her talons again, and a new feeling brightened Frightful's mood. "Chup, chup, chup," the tiercel called as he flew ahead of her. This time Frightful caught up with him. They flew in tandem above the Schoharie Valley. IN WHICH Frightful Goes to Falcon School Chup led Frightful higher and higher, to the misty 'bottom of a fair-weather cumulus cloud. Frightful left him. The füzziness of clouds, even thin clouds, was distracting to her. She liked clear air. Soaring back toward the escarpment, she scanned twenty miles in all directions for the one mountain where the one gigantic tree grew. She did not see the mountain. From out of nowhere bulleted the

female goshawk. Frightful shot up into the protection of Chup's cloud. The goshawk turned back. "Chup!" The tiercel appeared in the mist, flew close to her, then dove earthward at a steep angle. Again his "chup" touched some deep peregrine memory in her, and she followed the daring tiercel. Seconds later he thrust out his feet and landed on a cliff ledge. Frightful thrust out her feet and came down not far from him. She was on a stony rampart above the Schoharie River. The cliff and the river spoke to her of her first home and her parents. She held her wings to her body and stacked her tail feathers. She was agitated. The scene was familiar and unfamiliar. Chup walked toward her, lowering his head in deference to the greater size and power of the female peregrine. "Cree," she responded, and relaxed. But for size and Frightful's almost black head and cheek straps, Frightful and Chup looked alike. Both had large black-brown eyes, set deeply under flat foreheads. Their beaks were ebony black with

saffron-yellow nares. White throats and cheek patches shimmered above pale breast feathers stippled with black flecks. Their wings were long and graceful instruments of speed. They sat erect. They held their heads high. Their beings were lit with an inner flame and, at the same time, the cold stillness of ice. They were the royalty of birds. Frightful quickly took in her situation. The cliff was about sixty feet high and set back from the river. The land below was bottomland, where red maples, trees of the wetlands, grew. Geese and ducks paddled among cattails and sedges that lined the river's edge. Bank swallows popped in and out of nest holes on the far riverbank. Directly below the aerie was a pine tree where two blue jays had built a stick nest. In it were four scrawny nestlings. Chup let them live. They were part of his aerie community, like the flowers and the huckleberries. Frightful had arrived in perfect peregrine habitat. She was only vaguely aware of this. Almost her whole life had been spent with Sam on a mountain. Sam and his forest and abandoned meadow were her habitat.

She looked at Chup. He bowed his head to her. His respect awoke Frightful to action. She stretched her neck high. She lifted her feathers to look larger and therefore more beautiful to the tiercel. With this feather talk she told Chup she was bonding with him. She felt a closeness to this pleasant member of her species. Then a slight movement provoked her to peer behind Chup. Three young peregrine falcons stared at her. The eyases sat on their bums, legs stretched out in front of them. They were very young, no more than a week old. Their plump bodies were covered with white down; their beaks and feet were gray like the rocks. They were huddled on bare earth in the middle of a garden of pink blazing-star flowers. "Psee psee," each one cried. "Feed me." The sound stirred a new feeling in Frightful. She leaned down as if to pluck food, then, not knowing what came next, she stared at Chup.

Chup picked up a half-eaten duck and delicately snipped off a small bite. Folding his talons under his toes, he walked to an eyas and placed the morsel in her open mouth. He pulled off another bite and then another, feeding the chick until she was quiet. When the other two called "psee," he fed them morsel by morsel, patiently, devotedly. Frightful watched, her own terrible hunger mounting. When the wobbly eyases stopped eating, Chup broke off a bite of duck and offered it to Frightful. She swallowed ravenously and waited. She was back in her pattern with Sam. When Sam fed her she waited to see if he was going to give her just a bite and take her hunting again, or carry her home to feast and rest. Chup was not part of this routine. He offered no more bites, nor did he take her

hunting. Instead he left. He flew off to do as the peregrine tiercel must do—hunt for his mate and young, until the chicks were well feathered and could keep themselves warm without being brooded. When that happened, the female mate would join in the hunt. Not Frightful. She looked at the duck Chup had left. According to Sam's training, it was hers. Gingerly at first, then ravenously, she fed herself. Death by starvation comes quickly to a bird of prey, and strength returns as quickly. With each bite her eyes began to glisten with energy, and, like a flame, she soon flickered and stood tall. Vitality restored, she lifted one wing and stretched it as far as it would reach. Then she stretched the other, wiped her beak, and sat contentedly. Two days ago Chup's first mate, mother of the chicks, had flown out to stretch and exercise after days of inactivity. She had not come back. When several hours had passed and the chicks were screaming, Chup knew she had been killed. That afternoon he searched for another mate. The eyases must live. He called the love song over cliff and river. No female appeared.