Heroes Not Zombies

There are three common predator species of birds which I see around where I live, pretty much on a daily basis. There are the buzzards which circle on invisible airstreams way high up in the sky. I hear one call with a distinct but also distant cry and look up at the blue sky which I then have to scan till I spot what is often just a small dot against the blue. Then there are the owls, both the “barn owls” and the “little owls” which live in neighbouring outbuildings. On of the “little owls” sat up on my neighbour’s TV aerial last night calmly watching me while I closed all the shutters on our windows. Finally, there are the kestrels, like this one in the photo above.

The kestrel hovers, often at a height about that of a two or three storey house, whilst the buzzards circle rather than hover, and do so at much higher levels. I never see a kestrel sitting on a roof or an aerial, but I’ve spotted them in trees sometimes. Mostly, however, I see them like this. They are hovering silently, then, all of a sudden they fall like a stone onto some prey they have spotted.

Iain McGilchrist’s majestic “The Master and His Emissary” changed the way I understood the brain, and also changed the way I understood human, and other animal behaviours. He describes how birds share the phenomenon we humans have of a brain divided into two halves. You might know this already, but there is a crossover thing that happens between brains and bodies – our left hemisphere controls the right side of our body, and the right controls the left side. In birds the left hemisphere processes the information from the right eye and the right processes the information from the left eye. They choose to use each eye for different purposes.

The bird’s left eye and right hemisphere combination specialise in broad attention – they use this to be aware of potential predators around them, and to make social connections with other birds. They use the right eye and left hemisphere combination to focus in on details. The right eye, left hemisphere lets them spot prey, or find grain. They enable it catch and grasp.

As Iain points out in his book this split and asymmetry of the brain brings great evolutionary advantage – it allows the creature to be broadly aware, socially connected, and to be narrowly focused to grasp objects all at the same time. Both halves of the brain function all the time. We don’t selectively switch one off while we use the other one. But we can develop habits which prioritise the one half over the other – and that’s the key thesis of his book – that we have prioritised the attention the left hemisphere pays to the world over the broad, connecting attention the right hemisphere gives us.

I think of all that when I gaze in wonder at the kestrel. I marvel not just at its ability to hang there in the sky, but its ability to see a broad sweep of territory below, and to pick out, from such great heights, the prey it needs, exactly where it is moving in the field below.

Only once in the last six years have I been able to see a kestrel hover above me, dive down into the hedgerow and return with its catch.

Astonishing. Amazing. Wonderful.