In raptures over raptors

David Tomlinson spends a day at the British Falconers’ Club international field meet

sk a falconer about the attraction of our oldest fieldsport and you will be told the pleasure comes from the aerial acrobatics. It doesn’t even have to be successful — a day’s hawking is never measured by the size of the bag — but a great flight is a rare treasure.

I was reminded of this when

I went to Woodhall Spa for the British Falconers’ Club international field meet. First launched in 1969, the event is now held every four years. It is firmly established as one of the top international falconry meetings in the world — the other two greats are Opočno, in the Czech

Republic, and Kearney in Nebraska.

AThis was my fourth Woodhall Spa and I’ve been lucky enough to have seen some glorious action. Eight years ago it was watching a gyr-peregrine have a terrific hunt with wild grey partridges high on the Lincolnshire Wolds; four years ago it was a Spanish peregrine killing its first pheasant. But flying hawks or falcons at wild quarry is the most unpredictable of pastimes, and whether I would be lucky once again was uncertain, but that’s all part of the attraction of falconry.

My first visit to Woodhall was in the 1980s and I’ve never forgotten the remarkable sight of dozens of falcons, hawks and eagles sitting on their weathering blocks on

the lawns in front of the

Alan Greenhalgh with his gyr-peregrine falcon Jimmy on the Lockwood estate in Lincolnshire