10/19/2026
This morning I witnessed a Peregrine Falcon pluck a Black Skimmer from a fleeing flock of shorebirds at Huguenot Memorial Park. It was the epitome of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s phrase, “Nature, red in tooth and claw” from his 1850 poem “In Memorium, A.H.H.” The phrase was later repeated by Charles Darwin in “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. And some 175 years after these gentlemen, I experienced the same powerful theme on the beaches of Northeast Florida.
This morning had layers of red tooth and claw. After the initial kill, an immature Bald Eagle alighted near the Peregrine Falcon hoping for a snack, but it left shortly thereafter. A Turkey Vulture was more ambitious, though, and displaced the Peregrine Falcon, but only after the falcon had picked the carcass nearly clean.
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