SIDE BY SIDE, we move at what feels like close to 100 miles an hour, yet time slows down, the Land Rover jolting beneath us as we gain and lose sight of an African Hawk Eagle flying low and parallel to the earth.

It holds steady in its flight, about 30 feet above the ground. Beneath it, a smaller bird flies, 15 feet lower, unaware, or perhaps aware and resigned. I wonder if it knows it is being hunted. I wonder if the Hawk Eagle knows we are watching.

Osprey, pandion haliaetus, single adult taking flight from rock shelf, Eastern Australia. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear the quiet, familiar cadence of David Attenborough, the voice that first taught me how to see moments like this.

Years ago, I wrote about how it was not the time to stop listening to him. Standing here now, I realise I never did. Listen not just to learn, but to protect.

Greg, our tracker, tells us not to look away.

Then, in a blink, it happens.

The Hawk Eagle drops, not like a fall, not like a dive, but like something compelled by gravity with intent.

In an instant, it strikes. The smaller bird is knocked from the air, its body limp before it even begins to fall. The Hawk Eagle catches it mid-descent, its sharp, sleek talons closing with precision, and then they are gone, and I can hear my heart beat with aliveness.

Not for the bird, not for the violence, but for the perfection and sacredness of it. For the fact that I am there to see it, not through a screen, not through that same steady voice echoing through a childhood sitting room in Killinarden, but with my own eyes.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Years later, in the Galápagos, that same feeling finds me again. I am standing on the black, sunburnt lava of Fernandina Island, the heat rising through the soles of my shoes, the air thick with salt. The ground is alive.

Hundreds of Marine Iguanas lie piled together, their bodies overlapping........

© TheJournal