3 The Eyases Get on Wing

IN WHICH The Eyases Get on Ring Contents- Prev/ Next Drum, Duchess, and Lady glanced at the rabbit. It was not part of their food vocabulary, so they kept right on screaming. They were hungry for waterfowl or land birds. Frightful ate the rabbit while the eyases watched, twisting their heads from side to side and calling "pseee" when she swallowed. Duchess walked up to her, screaming in ear splitting decibels. Then the eyas lifted her wings and attacked. Frightful backed off a few steps and stared at the young falcon. Lady and Drum lowered their bodies horizontally and charged Frightful. The eyases had become dangerous. They were practicing for the

competitive world they would soon face. Frightful wanted no part of this schooling. She lifted herself into the air, fanned her wings, and flew to her tree stub. Chup came home. He brought no food to the eyases. Duchess charged him, mouth open, feathers lifted. He sat still and panted in the sun. His feathers were rumpled and he held his head low. Chup had not eaten for a day and a half. He was weak. That did not matter to Duchess. She attacked him. Chup, like Frightful, was forced to leave. Alighting on the dead limb of an oak, he looked down and saw the rabbit. Without hesitating, he dropped down onto it and ate, fending off the eyases. He could still dominate them. Chup had catholic tastes. He was nine years old. Each winter he migrated to South America. When the El Nino rains changed the balance of nature and birds were scarce, he dined on mammals and iguanas. Rabbit was food, and he was hungry. Lady and Duchess stopped screaming. Chup was eating rabbit; it must be food. Painfully hungry, Lady led a raid. She sneaked up to Chup. When he

covered the food with his wings and body, Duchess reached in from the rear and snatched the rabbit. She tore off small bites but did not like the taste. She shook her head and sent the meat flying against the rocks. Chup finished eating and flew off. Drum, who had now seen both parents eat this new food, dragged what was left under the overhang. Taking a bite in his beak, he swallowed. It was not delicious, but it was satisfying. He plucked another bite, then another. Drum was a survivor. When he was satisfied, Duchess and Lady tried the strange food again. They ate gingerly, partially satisfying their hunger. By sundown the peregrine family was fed if not full, but more importantly the family had a new housing arrangement. The eyases were now old enough to attack anything in sight, including their parents, and with that, their parents had sensibly turned the aerie over to them. Frightful and Chup did not return to the nest site. Frightful slept on the stub of the pine tree, Chup on the dead limb of his oak.

That evening they all watched orange and pink clouds float against a turquoise-blue sky. Chup felt restless. His offspring could not only eat on their own but also defend themselves. Just before sundown he spread his wings and soared out over the valley. He climbed high, he spiraled down, he skimmed along the river. With quick wing pumps he shot up and out of sight of Frightful and the eyases. Just before the sun set, he sped earthward, landing lightly on his dead branch. He heard the eyases chittering, saw Frightful sitting erect on her stub, and let his nictitating membranes slip across each eye. His lower eyelids closed upward and cut out the last of the daylight. The cliff side was quiet. The peregrine family was on schedule with summer. The eyases were completely feathered, feeding themselves, and aggressive, and the parents were perched alone. With the help of Mole, Frightful now regularly brought food to the eyases. Each morning she flew southward to Mole's farm and brought back strange but nourishing foods, which she dropped to the youngsters. Chup, who had gotten thin doing the job of two parents, began to put on weight.

Mole also gained weight. The old hound had the canniness of a wolf. It didn't take him long to realize he had a hunting companion who was quicker on the pickup than he. The first two times Frightful went off with the game he had flushed, he could do nothing but bark. Then he learned that she didn't like groundhogs. She had tried one and abandoned it to him. She also didn't like skunks or rats. He chased them all. She got the rabbits and pheasants. He got the rest. Mole and Frightful went hunting almost every day. When they had harvested the most conspicuous and abundant animals of the farm fields, Mole led her to more distant fields. The animals they left behind would breed, and their offspring would breed, until there were too many for their food supply. Then the two hunters would return and adjust the numbers again. When the fields yielded little game, they worked the barnyards and farm gardens. Together they kept the rabbits and groundhogs from eating the farmers' crops and the rats from eating the corn stored in cribs and bins.

And so Frightful hunted with Mole, as she had hunted with Sam, and became the provider Chup and the eyases needed. The eyases grew properly. At five weeks of age they were as big as their parents. Only a few bits of down on their heads and shoulders and their brown-gray color told how old they were. On a hot day in early July, Duchess sat at the edge of the aerie, her wings lifted to keep her cool. A wind blew over her. It moved more rapidly over the top of her wings than under them and created lift. Up she went. She hung above the ledge for a moment, became confused, and stalled herself out by moving her wings and changing the wind flow. She fell back to the aerie. Lady faced the wind, lifted her wings, and was airborne. She, too, fell back. She sat on her heels. Something new and wonderful had happened to her. She had been in the air with space between herself and the cliff. She and the wind had managed this wonder, which had changed her sense of who she was. She was a bird. She must fly.