Spring is here, and so are the peregrine falcons. Melbourne’s latest falcon pair is on its concrete scrape, 35 storeys up in chilly pollen-laden air, nesting under the gaze of thousands via two live-streaming webcams. I hope they are oblivious to their audience. I wish them privacy for their job of creation, but of course I don’t wish it so hard that I turn away. I’m back, too – peering into my aged laptop’s screen as one, then another, and finally a third caramel-coloured egg, is laid.
This year’s female has a disdainful gaze. I can imagine the terror she invokes as she swoops, a magnificent missile, to clutch at a pigeon, like the one that lies, mutilated, beside her nest. One wingtip points upward, but the remainder of its body is a mangled squash of flesh.
The peregrine mother has dined well, but now she is restless, fussing with her feathers, then lifting to check her eggs, then settling momentarily before twisting to groom her tail. From far below, indistinct megaphone shouts urge a crowd to action. She will not be enlisted. Her focus is only this – bringing new life into the world. Her yellow-ringed eyes flick across the camera, then scan skies and horizon for opportunities.
I’ve observed falcon families on this site for decades. Initially, I’d go into the city to keep vigil in the foyer of their building (367 Collins Street), where the proprietors provided a TV so fans could watch the very high jinks. Later, a webcam was installed so we could monitor from anywhere, anytime.
In 2021, amid a 106-day lockdown in my new home of Sydney, while trying to complete a book, a peregrine family became my family. The livestream played 24/7 in my study, its sound always up. Border closures had me locked away from all my clan – most distressingly, from my frail 90-year-old dad in Perth – but at least the ding-ding of trams brought me closer to my sisters in my old home of Melbourne.
Yet it was the insistent devotion of the parent birds that held me; their unwavering commitment to their task. They hunted. They killed. They sat. They stared. They waited and waited. They took turns, mother and father birds, with all this. They were bringing life into the pandemic-stricken world and nothing would deter them. The effort was obvious, as was the discomfort, at times.
Just as it is now. The female jostles again, high-stepping, trying to settle, when … “screeeeeeeeeee”. Her mate lands, tilting his head to greet her, but she has no time for pleasantries. She hops off the eggs, lifting off with one brisk flap and immediately he takes over on the nest, facing out across the city, watching her flight, perhaps. Way down below, a tiny moving dot tells me a dove or sparrow is in range.
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“Beware”, I want to call. She’s on the wing. The father is motionless. He’s working.
During that extended lockdown, those falcons inserted themselves into the narrative of my book. Peregrine falcons had no place in the story I’d thought I was telling, but the birds had other ideas. Oh sure, they were compelling – but it was more than that. They were teaching me about writing.
They modelled patience; all those hours waiting for eggs to hatch. There was nothing to do but turn up to the job, day and night and keep the faith that something would be born; something worth the time and boredom. “Listen”, they seemed to say: “Where you place attention is where you’ll get results”. “Don’t worry”, their actions declared, “if things get messy. And don’t fret if the world feels out of control. Just do your own job. Focus!” their glare insisted. “Any worthwhile task takes effort and grit. Ignore the carcasses and droppings and get on with what matters.”
After their chicks hatched, the work got more intense. The parents hunted constantly to silence the shrieking of their ravenous babies. Then, when they began to learn to fly, I noted the same determination in them. They’d stand on that perilous ledge in the clouds, flapping their developing wings for what seemed for ever.
How did they not tire? They knew they had to keep practising, keep working, if they were not to fall to earth, to death. They laboured, daring me to labour in that same driven way. Work harder, they insisted. Fly or die.
When the smallest chick (I called him Runty) grew horribly frail, the webcam was turned off. Thousands of us mourned that little bird. I wept, understanding that death would always be waiting, but grateful for Runty’s life. He had been the most important teacher of all.
By the end of lockdown, the falcons had reshaped my book. The path that had eluded me for so long was finally clear – revealed by paying attention to the intimate lives of an avian family.
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For Life by Ailsa Piper is out now through Allen & Unwin ($34.99)