On Nature: Unexpected Ramblings on the British Countryside. Литагент HarperCollins USD
from the fist opens up the possibilities of more advanced training as he begins to associate you with food. In The Goshawk, T.H. White struggles with the tempestuous Gos, who is delivered from Germany in a basket, only a few weeks old and still never having seen another living thing:
. . . he was tumultuous and frightening . . . born to fly, sloping sideways, free among the verdure of that Teutonic upland, to murder with his fierce feet and to consume with that curved Persian beak, who now hopped up and down in a clothes basket with a kind of imperious precocity, the impatience of a spoiled but noble heir-apparent to the Holy Roman Empire.
White introduces himself to Gos in a barn, and what follows is a battle of patience and instinct as White attempts to force Gos to accept him. Endlessly placing him on his fist only for Gos to ‘bate’ and end up suspended by his jesses until White again puts him on his fist, and on it goes.
I was to stay awake if necessary for three days and nights, during which, I hoped, the tyrant would learn to stop his bating and to accept my hand as a perch, would consent to eat there, and would become a little accustomed to the strange life of human beings.
Eventually Gos accepts White, suffering to sit on his fist while he walks around his farm, into town and even on a visit to the local pub.
Happily these days the best method of training birds of prey is more widely agreed on and much less stressful for both bird and man. For one thing eggs are no longer taken from nests but laid in captivity, and chicks are fed from the glove from the moment they hatch. This ‘imprints’ the person doing the feeding as the parent and means the bird will accept food from anyone from that moment on – as long as it is offered from a glove. This process makes the hawk or falcon think that you and they are the same species. While this has obvious benefits when it comes to training, it also means that they have no fear of you and if cornered will attack. Falconers also introduce the ‘lure’ earlier in the training process these days too. Feeding a bird of prey from a small leather pouch at the end of a long string familiarises the bird with the lure as a food source. You can then drag the lure, with food and/or animal fur attached, to ‘remind’ the bird of its natural behaviour when the bird is more mature. Because they tend to hunt prey that lives on the ground, hawks and eagles are taught to go for a dragged lure to simulate chasing rabbits and small animals. Falcons will hunt other birds on the wing (in mid air). In this instance the bird, familiar with the lure as a food source, will attempt to catch the lure when the falconer swings it around his head. Expert lure practitioners strengthen their falcons and improve their hunting ability by sweeping the lure away at the last minute in a cross between a choreographed dance and a martial art. (I’ve tried my hand at lure swinging, but was no match for the saker falcon I found myself pitted against. She mugged me for it on her first attempt.) The falcon needs this kind of training so it can cope with hunting in the wild – I saw a hobby hunting bats at dusk on the River Avon once, which was stupefying. Falcons have an instinctive agility that the human eye can barely match, but as the falconer is aiming to push the falcon into discovering its innate ability rather than teach it everything from scratch, it doesn’t take long for the bird to ‘get it’ and successfully hunt on its own.
The ridge softens and you stop in front of a bramble bush that shelters you from the field, slowly untying the falconer’s knot and releasing the jesses with your right hand. Closer to the barn now, you raise your arm and push him into the air. You must not let him get too far away. He glides down towards the roof, and lands on its highest point. You are 100 metres or so away when you begin to walk towards the barn. The brown fur of a rabbit lollops near you, but he just sits – it’s not worth it. He looks behind the barn, spots something and vanishes. Damn! But you don’t run. There’s no point. You twinge in panic – could this be the day he decides to leave? It’s always possible, but no. You remember his hunting weight. It’s just hunger driving instinct. Then he reappears on the roof. You relax with relief. You start to move again. The wave of impact from your footsteps begins to interest him, he spots something but there’s no movement. Then he beats his wings and dives down. The rabbit that you can’t see has a fifty-fifty chance. You imagine it darting left and right, heading for a hole. The hawk seems to be going too slowly. He’s barely moving his wings, then he arcs one way and then another. You see it! The rabbit’s back legs force him into a high leap over something, towards a bush. Then he stoops, wings raised and feet falling, covering, and then there’s no sound. You run now, forgetting the holes. You charge and find them both. He turns to you and squawks mercilessly. The rabbit is alive, one eye fixed in terror and the heart juddering under its fur. He mantles with his wings, talons gripping the rabbit’s face and back. Not sharing, not yet. You offer something else from the bag, a whole chick that’s dead – easier to eat and no risk of injury. Your left hand now firmly presses down on the rabbit’s back. He jumps for the chick and eats it in one go, cocking his neck to swallow. Your right hand reaches for the rabbit’s neck. You pause, registering the soft fur, and then you pull hard. The rabbit’s neck breaks and the fight is gone. You feel exhilarated and shocked. The quarry goes into your bag.
You sit in the wet grass. Breathless. He stands on the floor. There is no pleasure in death but also no regret. His eyes flit and twitch. You are tame. He is wild. This is the world. A glimpse of the truth that lies behind every breath becomes clearer in the cold autumn light. Whether you would have it or not, this is the world. Climbing to your feet you hold out your fist. He flaps his wings impatiently and is up. His feet tangle with the jesses. You unravel them and hold them between the fingers and palm of your left hand. He’s still concentrating. Still hungry. Always looking for something else.
Recommended reading:
The Goshawk by T.H. White
Falconry by Emma Ford
A Manual of Falconry by M.H. Woodford
England Have My Bones by T.H. White
Selection of falconry terms (reprinted from Harting’s Bibliotheca Accipitraria):
AYRE and EYRIE, nesting place. ‘Our aiery buildeth in the cedar’s top.’ – Shakespeare.
BATE, BATING, fluttering or flying off the fist. ‘It is calde batyng for she batith with hirselfe, most oftyn causeless.’ – Boke of St Albans, 1486.
BOWSE, to drink; variously spelt ‘bouse’, ‘boose’, ‘bouze’ and ‘booze’.
CADGER, the person who carries the hawk; hence the abbreviated form ‘cad’, a person fit for no other occupation.
LURE, technically a bunch of feathers or couple of wings tied together on a piece of leather and weighted.
MANNING, making a hawk tame by accustoming her to man’s presence.
MEWS, the place where hawks are set down to moult.
QUARRY, the game flown at.
ROUSE, when ‘a hawk lifteth herself up and shaketh herself’ – Boke of St Albans, 1486.
STOOP, the swift descent of a falcon on the quarry from a height.
Recommended falconry courses:
British School of Falconry, Gleneagles, Scotland: www.gleneagles.com.
Frontline Falconry, Auchen Castle, Scotland: www. auchencastle.net; www.frontlinefalconry.co.uk.
Wainwright Walks
Stuart Maconie
On the front of the first edition of a book of mine called Cider with Roadies, there’s a picture I love. It’s taken in a nightclub called Bluto’s in Wigan in about 1978 and it’s of me and my teenage friend Dylan. He looks like trouble, frankly. You would cross the road to avoid him with his toothless snarling visage, however hammed up for the camera. I am looking, well, like a bit of a ponce actually. I’m in the grip of my adolescent Elvis Costello fixation and am wearing a grey ’50s demob-style jacket, a white brinylon shirt and a blue knitted tie. So far, so hipster. But my hair is all wrong and my glasses are not Costello nerd chic but tinted Doobie Brothers ‘style’. In time I would grow to love the Doobie Brothers but that