The man turned off the rough track and made his way across open heather. He was cheerful and why not? In March he had made the same journey to the eagle’s eyrie in this remote highland valley where the birds had built their nest in the top of a pine tree high in the glen. In March he had successfully climbed the tree and stolen an egg from the agitated eagles. There had been two eggs and he had left one as a kind of investment. Now in June, he was returning to collect this dividend. He intended to lift the eaglet for sale to a customer from the Middle East who had placed an order. For a falconer in the Middle East there was no greater kudos than flying the majestic Golden Eagle and one sourced from the Highlands of Scotland had a special cachet.
The day was hot, the sort of oppressive weather that sometimes occurs in late June in the highlands. The man suffered a cloud of flies buzzing ominously around his head. He flapped ineffectually at them with a handful of bracken gathered as he walked. The way was steeply upwards and he stumbled frequently in the uneven ground. His rucksack was hot on his back and he sweated beneath it where air could not circulate.
He saw no one and yet his passage did not go unnoticed. A dark speck in the blue sky circled and circled. The man swore as he put his foot in a concealed drainage ditch and the cold water flooded in to soak his sock. It was as he approached the group of trees that contained the eyrie that he noticed a brown shape glide from tree to tree. It was the male eagle and he was clearly agitated. The man felt a pang of nervousness. He was used to climbing and had little fear of heights but he would have liked to climb the tree without a large bird distracting him. The top of the glen was narrow with looming mountains on either side. They pressed in on him seeming sinister and malevolent. The large scots pines had bark patterned like the scales on a reptile and their dark needles added to the gloom in spite of the blue sky overhead.
The man reached the base of the tree and stared up at the untidy bundle of sticks at the top. He tried to put aside his feeling of foreboding and began to climb to the first large bough at a height of about ten feet. The male eagle swept back and forth in silent menace. The man knew that he must keep his eye upon the raptor lest it made a lunge for him. He focused upon the eagle but could hear the eaglet calling in the nest overhead. He had balanced on the bough ready to pull up to a higher branch when his peripheral vision momentarily registered a dark shadow. Too late, he had half turned his head when the female eagle struck. The female golden eagle is considerably larger than the male and she had a wingspan of seven feet and eight inches and a weighed fourteen pounds. She had watched the man from a height of two thousand feet and from there could see every detail. She saw the sweat on his face. She saw the Clegg that bit the back of his hand and the Scotch Argus that rose at his feet. She remembered his visit in March and knew what she must do. As he scrambled into the tree she half closed her wings and swept into a fast glide reaching one hundred and twenty five miles an hour. She seemed to fall from the sky to skim six feet from the ground, flashing though the tree trunks. It was late afternoon and the westerly sun cast her shadow ahead of her so that it seemed that two eagles were attacking. She struck the man a massive blow on the neck. It was like being struck with a baseball bat and had he not had a rucksack protecting him his neck would have been broken. As it was, the huge talons ripped through the rucksac and one caught the man’s neck leaving a bloody furrow. A fraction deeper and his carotid would have been severed. He fell heavily to the ground ten feet below and was winded. When he got his breath back he uttered a strange cry, half scream half whimper. He knew primal fear. Staggering and gasping with an adrenalin white face he fled the glen. He carried his rucksac in both hands to fend off further attack and his wild eyes scanned the sky. He knew what his ancestors had known – what it was like to be hunted. By the time he reached his car his underwear was soaked in cold sweat. Blood soaked into his shirt collar and he shook uncontrollably. He leapt into the car and slumped over the steering wheel where he sobbed for five minutes before driving away. He did not return.