News Flash 2 - and now an Earthquake!

Just around 1am GMT this morning my house shook as if some giant hand was gently pulling off its roof. Clearly a minor earth tremor, I checked first on the family, then went outside into the street to - well, total silence. Was it imagination? There was not a sound to be heard. No alarms, no falling masonry. But eventually a call from a neighbour's window showed I wasn't alone in feeling the vibrations. Indeed, within half an hour BBC national news was announcing first reports of a widespread tremor felt across a wide area in the Midlands and northern England.
But actually all was not quiet outside. The night itself was still and calm, but all around there had been a gentle but constant sound of wings beating. Birds were flapping in the branches, having been disturbed in their roosts, and were settling back down again. Quite a number of these sounds seemed to be overhead, yet were invisible to me.

Perhaps our peregrines took advantage of this disturbance, who knows? Recent research has shown that peregrines are now adapting to hunt at night, using city lights to help them find their prey highlighted against the dark sky. Perhaps an earth tremor seems an unlikely cause of extra food becoming available to a peregrine. But already 2008 is proving to be an interesting year, and perhaps there are many more surprises still to come.

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