When I contacted RSPB investigator Howard Jones in late December for news on the loss of Sky and Hope, he was driving north to investigate another case of raptor persecution.
This elegant raptor is currently the subject of a heated debate between conservationists and the owners of grouse moors and their gamekeepers, many of whom continue to flout the law by killing these majestic birds of prey.
It's a survivor, a raptor that has withstood everything we humans could throw at it.
Since 2000, 20 gamekeepers have been found guilty of "raptor persecution" or poisoning offences on grouse moorland, including one who killed a hen harrier in Scotland.
According a to statement by CENTCOM, the US military command in the region, waves of land-based and carrier-borne fighter jets (including, for the first time in combat, the stealthy F-22 Raptor), armed Reaper and Predator drones and 47 cruise missiles, launched from guided missile destroyers in the Red Sea and the Gulf, pounded IS targets.
In mock battles, its stealth and sensors allow a lone Raptor to kill a flock of any other kind of aircraft.But the fighter is an endangered species.
For years Japan had been hoping to buy America's snazzy but expensive F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which has since been partially imitated by China and Russia.
And the other boy tries to fend off the raptor with an oxygen canister, just like Police Chief Brody in "Jaws".
But even more impressive is to see the Raptor at low speed, hovering almost stationary in the air, its nose pointing upwards, like a child's toy strung up to the sky.
A popular tourist destination is the city's raptor rehabilitation centre.
A generalized raptor is known from 50 to 35 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch.
