I was having a bit of an ‘off’ day when I paddled out of Fowey estuary a week ago. I don’t know why, but my brain just wouldn’t engage and kept drifting off.
Went to bed too late…unlikely. Getting too old…probably. Irritated that I forgot to pack that Raisin and Biscuit Yorkie Duo for mid-morning snack…definitely!
It doesn’t really matter that you are not fully tuned-in for the fifteen-minute leisurely paddle amongst the mass of moored yachts before gaining access to the open sea.
Nothing sudden is going to happen.
A cruise liner had just arrived and was dominating the scene.
By the time I arrived off the headland half an hour later I was hoping that my brain fugg might have dispersed. Like mist on a heated rear window in a car of yesteryear it was taking a bit of shifting.
I could feel it in my bones that something dramatic was about to occur so I needed to snappy up…fast.
Too late. An entire shoal of Garfish leapt out of the water a few feet in front of my kayak. Had I been on the ball I would have grabbed my camera bag from behind my seat faster than a striking Cobra and be unfurling the seal in a blurr of whirring fingers, because I knew what was coming next.
The Garfish leapt again and I just sat and gawped.
As expected a monstrous Tuna then exploded from the surface with a roar of water a couple of metres in front of me, sending one fish spiralling in to the air high above it.
A real whopper of a fish.
I continued gawping.
It re-entered in a surprisingly splash-free dive and was gone…and that was the show finished.
This is how it looked and this is what I should have pictured had I be ‘on it’.
Thanks to son Henry for these amazing pics:
Or maybe I would have been too slow anyway. My best scramble time for getting my camera out of its bag and ready for action is 12.68 seconds (approx) and all this happened a bit quicker than that.
Whatever my photographic failure, the phenomenal burst of violent action just in front of my nose had reconnected the claggy synapses in my brain so I was now thinking more clearly than Melvyn Bragg.
That’s better. This is how I like to be. Completely plugged in to everything that is going on around. If anything twitches a whisker or sneezes it will not go undetected. Maybe it’s called mindfulness. Mindemptyness might be more accurate in my case, because I find it is essential to clear out the clutter first.
Whatever, it’s all very addictive…and enjoyable.
So when I heard the squeal of another of the world’s most finely-honed top predators only a few minutes later, I reacted faster than if I had been tasered.
It was the sneering snicker of a juvenile Peregrine Falcon begging for food, a sound that echoes around many of the remotest cliffs and coves around Devon and Cornwall in mid-summer when the youngsters leave the nest. It is a magical sound and is incredibly far-carrying. On a still day I have heard it clearly while sitting five miles offshore. It’s one of the great sounds of the coastal wilderness.
If your brain is tuned in to the wildlife channel, it sends a shiver of electricity up your spine.
I engaged max stealth mode and sneaked along close to the shore towards the noise, using the rocky islets as cover in the style of John Wayne.
I nearly missed them. Only twenty metres ahead…two peregrines perched on top of a barnacle-encrusted rock. One looking very large, the other surprisingly small and lean.
Luckily I was almost completely hidden from their view by a rock. I whipped my camera out of its bag in what must have been record time because I didn’t want two foul-ups in less than an hour.
The falcons were too busy to worry about me. The bird on the right was bigger not just because she was the female but because she was fluffed up and ‘mantling’ over a recent kill. The male, very sensibly, was keeping clear and not involved with the feast.
The juvenile-style snickering was a bit of a puzzle. Typically I don’t hear that noise after the youngsters become self-sufficient by about the end of August.
Also this falcon had the plumage of an adult bird. I wonder if it had just ‘begged’ the meal off the male in the manner of a juvenile before I had arrived upon the scene.
Dunno, but that’s the appeal of paddling around quietly observing all this fantastic wildlife. Gets yer thinking ‘n all.
The male departed and I watched the female relishing her jackdaw victim. That’s what it looked like, anyway. Black and small crow-sized.
I generally keep well clear of Peregrines because they usually have a very definite tolerance limit of human approach and I wonder whether the reason some pairs have deserted their traditional nesting cliffs around the coast of Cornwall is because of increased disturbance by go-anywhere craft such as kayaks and paddleboards. Perhaps combined with many more walkers and their dogs wandering along the coast path on the top of cliff.
Cliffs in Cornwall are generally lower than in Devon so potential for disturbance is greater…and there doesn’t seem to be such a problem in Devon.
So I rarely have the opportunity to grab photos such as this of the world’s fastest creature.
Unfortunately it WAS then spooked by some fishermen who came clambering over the rocks. Pity, but it didn’t seem too fussed when it relocated to a cliff and continued to munch.
On the way back to Fowey I loitered off the headland again in the hope of another tuna encounter but there was not a sniff of any action.
Moral of today: ‘Expect the unexpected, because unexpected things occur when you are least expecting’. I’m sure Melvyn Bragg would approve.
The Lone Kayaker 