COUNTRY LIFE
DOWN in the gully, overhung by an ash-tree and two or three clumps of gorse, there was little but a floor of broken rock, limestone that had crumbled from the sides of the gully itself. Here and there, growing in the few patches of soil that had gathered, were ferns. There was no sign of life and no wind. I began to think that all wild things avoided the place until I saw three voles. They lay within a yard of each other, and they were dead. As far as I could tell, they had been dead a day or two, but what had killed them ? I was puzzled until I looked up. A dead tree stuck out of the rock away above me. The voles had apparently fallen from the tree. When I looked closer, I saw on the ground the head and feet of a bird. Some predator, perhaps an owl or kestrel, was in the habit of eating its kill up there. By carelessness it had lost the first vole, flown off and caught a second and third, losing each in turn. The gully was too close-walled for the killer to venture down and feel safe. It had evidently been happier replacing the kill than retrieving it. I thought this explanation reasonable, but did not have the luck to see the bird that had been using the tree as a perch.
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