The Kestrel
This is a kestrel’s egg. The kestrel is the most familiar bird of prey with its pointed wings and long tail, hovering beside a roadside verge. They have adapted readily to man-made environments and can survive right in the centre of cities. All the same, kestrels have been recently declining as a result of habitat degradation due to continuing intensive management of farmland and the species is included on the RSPBs Amber List.
Birds of prey are reminder that we mustn’t get too sentimental about birds – they are beautiful killers. In fact, many other birds will kill the young of other species given half a chance. As Charles Darwin underlined, the natural world is the place where only the fittest survive – and then only briefly.
The clergyman-poet Andrew Young (1885-1971) wrote a poignant poem, Killed by a Hawk, about finding the body of a sick hawk, which had been killed another hawk:
I stir them with my stick
These trembling feathers left behindTo show a hawk was sick,
No more to fly except on the loose wind.(Extract)
Reading:
‘ "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’
(Matthew 5. 38-39)
Prayer:
‘Father, help us to turn against the urgings of nature when they call us to turn against you. Help us to show your generosity in our lives. Amen.’
