Hoverwing
A kestrel, and if you've stood on high ground in the Peak District you'll know the silhouette before I describe it: wings beating fast and shallow, body dead still against the sky, hanging in place like it's been pinned there. A hoverwing does the same trick, just for longer than the wind should allow and at angles into headwinds that shouldn't work.
It hunts by sight, mostly, and it hunts small -- ashpeeps, mice, the odd unlucky flufftail kit that strays too far from the warren edge. The stoop, when it comes, is close to vertical and fast enough that you hear the wing-rush arrive after the strike, not before.
What makes a hoverwing worth an entry rather than a footnote is the eyesight. It reads the ground in bands of colour the rest of us don't get -- ultraviolet, the naturalists off-world call it, though nobody in Hellsborough's bothered coining a word for it -- which means it can see the scent-trail a scared mouse leaves across open ground, glowing, hours after the mouse itself has gone to earth.
They nest high, on crag ledges and the odd derelict chimney stack, and they are not remotely interested in anything person-sized. I include the entry because half of Hellsborough will ask you what that hovering shape overhead is, and "it's fine, it's not after you" is worth being able to say with confidence.
Field note: a hoverwing stooping nearby means something small just made a fatal mistake in the open. It is not a warning sign for you. Watch and enjoy it.
| Type | Blinker |
| HP | 2 |
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