Fast and Furious – the Gwalchglas

In his rousing book, Raptors, James Macdonald Lockhart describes the moment an unremarkable afternoon walk transformed into a never-to-be-forgotten moment: “Rising out of the bramble thicket beside a gate was a female Sparrowhawk. Wings spread, tail open in a fan as she rose..appearing as if from nowhere and then [she] was gone.” For Macdonald Lockhart, Sparrowhawks “operate in a different dimension to other birds of prey”. Having last week experienced an almost identical encounter with the lightning-fast aerial hunter that the Welsh call ‘Gwlchglas’, I know what he means.