The Kestrel and why it matters to me.

Some of you who own my album "The Delicious Company of Freaks" will have noticed that on the rear of the booklet, outside the window of the room, there is a bird seemingly suspended in the clear blue sky.  That bird is a Kestrel, doing what Kestrels can do, almost effortlessly, hovering in mid air, watching the ground below getting ready to dive to its prey.

This is a sight I was lucky to see quite regularly on walks with my family up onto the North Downs.  The steep verges beside the M20 close to my family home in Wrotham, Kent, made a perfect hunting ground for this graceful and mysterious bird, and my Dad, being a mine of information on all things Ornithological, would always point it out, and then urge me to read more about it in the Observer Book of British Birds, which had pride of place on the bookshelf in the hall. 

I was genuinely fascinated by it, and the other birds of prey which shared the page with it (The Merlin and The Hobby).  I have fond memories of getting all my felt tip pens out and setting out to copy a Kestrel in flight as a gift for my Dad, and the immense sense of pride it brought when he decided to put it in a frame and hang it, pride of place, beside his desk.

My Dad was a reserved man, never showing too much of any particular emotion, but what was clear, was his joy that his love of this creature had been passed down to me so effectively.

When Dad passed away, I, like many others I know who have lost a parent, felt like a way marker in my journey in life had suddenly been stripped away.  It was like everything I had done up to that point had in some way been informed by my Father, and that not being able to approach him to give that advice, or just a nod of "You're doing ok Son, just keep at it" would be impossible to cope with.

It was just a few days after the Funeral when feeling so lost, when driving somewhere I looked to my right to see a Kestrel hovering above a field beside the motorway.  Now, I don't mind if you think I'm sentimental, or silly for thinking this, but I genuinely felt that Dad had something to do with that bird appearing at that time, in that way.  Since then, when I've been on journeys which I felt significant - driving to gigs, going on tours, going to visit my Mum, and sometimes on an ordinary day, I will always see a bird of prey of some description cross my path in some way.

More often than not it's a Buzzard or a pair of Buzzards gliding high in the sky, sometimes it'll be Sparrow Hawk sitting in a tree (or sometimes on the top of a Lamp Post!).  However, the one bird which drifts, hovering softly, often lit by the gentle sun, into my life is the Kestrel.  There is nothing which lifts my heart and soul quite so much as catching a brief glimpse of a Kestrel - and that is the reason it features on the album artwork of The Delicious Company of Freaks, and will feature in the artwork of my next album "The Light Broke In". 

As for why it's outside a window on the left hand side of the image - well, you can blame Mark Wilkinson's escaping Jester in "Misplaced Childhood" for that one :)