Peregrine kills We all know that Peregrines are killing machines and that they do it magnificently, apart from affording us birders with a spectacle if we are fortunate enough to watch one in full action.

My friend Mike Clarke regularly watches them hunting at Slimbridge (which isn't on the Costa del Sol, I know) and we have both long maintained that they will sometimes 'play' with prey species, just to annoy them so it seems. Both of us have seen Peregrines head for a flock of resting waders with no intention of hunting, apparently for pure badness to watch the panic that their presence engenders as the waders scatter all over the horizon.
I once saw one flying high along with some Yellow-legged Gulls which weren't overly enamoured of its close presence and made some token movements towards it, whereupon the Peregrine gained 50-60m height on at least five occasions, wing tip turned and dived through them and caused a lot of squawking and general bedlam. It may sound anthropomorphic, but I got the distinct feeling that it was 'playing' with them.

Of course, they also hunt seriously, and one of the best bits of hunting I have ever seen was at Boat of Garten (Scotland) in the mid 1960s when I spent about three hours watching a pair with four well grown chicks hunting Wood Pigeons with an astonishingly high success rate. Several years ago, my wife and I spent a morning at the Book Fair in the Alameda, Málaga, and then crossed over to the park to listen to the municipal band playing Rossini and so on, whilst overhead the pair of Peregrines from the cathedral hunted pigeons. It's quite a counter point, listening to the wonderful overture to The Barber of Seville while a few feathers of some unfortunate pigeon float down.

All this was brought on by a note from Steve Penn at Calahonda (E of Marbella) who had the following experience over his breakfast: I was just having my cornflakes in the lounge and peering out down the garden when this huge shaped hawk /falcon shot across at just above roof height . I thought to myself ´what the hell`was that . Two seconds later several collared doves shot off in all directions at a great rate of knots.Thought, that's a bit strange. Carried on peering down the garden and all of a sudden this thing came back over the pool carrying a dove which was struggling like hell to no avail as its feathers were coming out in massive tufts and mostly in my pool. It was gone before I could get outside, so something got its breakfast. I presume it was a peregrine falcon, but didn't get a clear view as it was all too fast. One thing's for sure, that pigeon won't fly again as half its feathers are in my pool.

But they don't always get their quarry, as a couple of weeks since, coming back from Málaga and stuck in the usual traffic jam near the Málaga conference centre and suddenly a small corpse plummeted down, narrowly missed the car in front of me by cms, bounced on the road by me and there were some pathetic feathered remains which appeared to be headless and certainly unidentifiable without stopping, something I was not going to do! I couldn't see anything and then a small, obviously male, Peregrine floated over!