Seeing a falcon
Seeing a falcon is often seeing a kestrel, the small falcon of roadside wires and open fields. It hunts mostly from a perch and hovers only where there is nowhere to sit, a sensible way to spend effort.
What it may mean
A kestrel hanging in the wind over a meadow is a lovely sight and an expensive one. To hover, the bird faces into the wind and flies at exactly the wind's speed, flicking its wings and fanning its tail every second so that its head stays still while it scans the grass. That costs far more energy than sitting. So kestrels do most of their hunting from wires, poles and treetops, and hover mainly over open country where there is nowhere to perch. The bird saves its hardest work for the places that leave no other choice. People rarely budget effort so carefully. Many of us hover all day, answering at once and watching every channel, when a good perch would show the same field: a set hour for messages, a routine that runs itself, a friend who will call if something changes.
Depending on how you saw it
Kestrels along the highway
Kestrels often sit on wires and signs beside highways, where mowed verges make mice and grasshoppers easy to spot. A strip of grass that drivers never look at feeds them well. What useful thing grows in the part of your week that nobody else bothers to look at?
Watching a falcon for a long time
In a tale retold by the English poet William Morris, whoever watched a falcon for seven days and seven nights without sleeping would have a first wish granted by a fairy. Few of us watch anything that long now. What would you be willing to watch patiently, without a screen in your hand?
A kestrel over your garden
In Bohemia the kestrel was held to be a bird of good omen. Gardeners have their own reason to welcome one, since kestrels eat mice and big insects. Which visitor to your life looked like a threat and turned out to be a help?
A falcon over the mountains
Albanian peasants believed that their national hero Scanderbeg still haunted his native mountains in the form of a falcon. A people's memory can take the shape of a bird. Which figure from your own family or town lives on in the stories people tell?
Why it happens in nature
Falcons are fast raptors with pointed wings. The American kestrel, the smallest falcon in North America, often hovers by facing into the wind and adjusting its wings and tail while its head stays almost fixed, then drops onto grasshoppers, mice or small birds. More often it hunts from a wire, pole or treetop, which is why so many are seen along roads.
What folk beliefs say
England (William Morris)
William Morris, a 1903 collection says, tells that whoever watches a falcon for seven days and seven nights together, without sleeping, shall have his first wish granted by a fairy.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 627. View the page
Bohemia (Czech lands)
The Bohemians believed the kestrel to be a bird of good omen.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 654. View the page
Albania
Albanian peasants believed that the hero Scanderbeg still haunted his native mountains in the form of a falcon.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 3 (1903), vol. 3, p. 1649. View the page
To reflect on
Where are you hovering at full effort when a good perch would let you watch just as well?