A mountain perch

I sat atop my mountain perch, as the sun sank into the Atlantic. Swallows swooped and dived overhead, their agile turns and flicks made them blur past my position. I’d walked a little further around the bend on Kloof Corner, so despite the occasional tourist chatter, I felt alone. 

The orange glow that strikes the mountain face during sunset never ceases to be a wonder. It prompts a deep breath in, followed by a satisfactory exhale. It’s often at these times that I question my desire to leave the nest and fly into distant lands like my swallow friends. 

Even with my glasses, the unmoving orange blob on the rocks below me isn’t quite clear. I stare for what feels like a few minutes, trying to work if this is a thing that lives or just a thing that sits. 

My gaze leaves it distractedly as a swallow whips past my head. As it circles back, I set shutter to 1000, opened my aperture all the way and made a hopeful snap as it swirled nearby. 

My eyes returned to the blob, but it was gone. But wait - there it goes, gliding across the fynbos, it’s straight wing shape tells me it is a Rock Kestrel.  It pulls upwards and then tucks into a dive. It’s trying to bomb something on a lower perch. The recipient hopped from rock to branch, a big dark shape with enormous wings, seemingly a little flustered but not overly so, from the sorties of its smaller cousin. 

And with that, the Vereaux’s partner came from the heavens above, its sheer size and aura is always a special sight. The arrival of Vereaux Two meant the R.K made a hasty retreat to orange blob form on its rock perch below. 

Grinning at my good fortune, I resumed my sun-gazing with my feathered friends as company - all of us on our respective perches.