Shooting Times & Country Magazine
The wonder of deadly wings
Falconry requires a lot of knowledge and time — it isn’t something you can take up on a whim but it’s well worth it, says José Souto
From Billy Casper with the world’s most famous kestrel on his fist in Ken Loach’s 1969 adaptation of Barry Hines’ Kes, to Helen Macdonald’s best-selling 2014 memoir H is for Hawk, it seems that Britain is a country with hooked beaks and talons in our sporting soul.
There is probably no reader of Shooting Times who hasn’t stopped for a moment to marvel at a hawk or even an eagle being flown in the ring at their local game fair. These birds are truly incredible creatures and hunting with them, for my money, is one of the purest and most exhilarating sports ever to be played out in the field. But the whole thing is a little daunting. You can put a gun away in the cabinet, or a fishing rod under the stairs, but birds like mine require love, care and thought, every day of the year. The question, though, is does the wonder of it outweigh the effort?
The thought was momentarily in my mind last week when I walked out on a warm autumn evening with Wonky on my arm. Wonky is my young female peregrine and we were out after grey partridges in Cambridgeshire.
If Henry VIII came back to life, I suspect he would find all the shopping centres and motorways to be confusing and pretty awful, but I imagine he’d feel reassured that people are still hunting grey partridges with the sort of birds he loved.
History
It’s said that initially falconry was brought back to England by knights returning from the Crusades.
It’s a romantic idea, but the sport does exist all over the world — in Kazakhstan, for example, they are very keen on hunting wolves with eagles — but whether there’s any truth in the whole thing being imported by chivalrous knights is not entirely clear. What is true, though, is that for hundreds of years, mine was a sport dominated by class. In the 15th-century Boke of St Albans, it’s recorded that an emperor could have an eagle, a king a gyrfalcon, a prince a peregrine, a lad a merlin, right down to a kestrel for a knave. The only exception to that rigid list was the goshawk, which could be owned by yeomen to put food on the table.
Happily, today, your social rank doesn’t dictate the sort of bird you can have, but rather it is dictated by experience — or at least, it ought to be.
Falconers are divided into two camps. There are those who use birds from the falcon family, either falcons or longwings, generally peregrines, sakers, lanners, merlins and gyr falcons. These usually take feathered game. Then there are the austringers, who use true hawks like goshawks, or broadwings such as Harris hawks and red-tailed hawks, and eagles like goldens. These bigger birds are used to take feathered game, but they are also capable of taking furred game such as rabbits and hares.
In my opinion, there are people in this country who rush into fishing or shooting without putting in the
groundwork. In many ways, it’s brilliant that a man or woman who has had a successful career can retire at 50 and take up grouse shooting at 51, but it can create problems. Falconry is a sport where people are less inclined to do that. In the same way that you can’t jump on a big bay horse and ride out after hounds, you can’t just start hunting with a falcon.
Experience days
If you are looking to start, I would first book yourself a day of hunting with a hawk. T here are few people who ever head out to do this and decide it’s not for them, but I’m sure such people do exist. You’ll probably find that on such a day you’ll be using a Harris hawk, which are great birds with which to begin your falconry journey.
But don’t think for a minute that these are lame novices’ birds. In the right hands and with a bit of work, Harris hawks — named after a philanthropist who travelled to the US with the great ornithologist
“You’ll start with a Harris hawk, but don’t think for a minute these are novices’ birds”
Audubon — can be fantastic. My first Harris hawk, Elly, who has featured many times in adventures in these pages, took more than
750 head of game in her lifetime, from partridges on the wing while she waited on thermals to 8.5lb hares and 10lb greylag geese.
The reason why Harris hawks are a great first bird, however, is that they are biddable and are programmed to work in a team — in the wild they live in groups and cooperatively hunt, so on a level they actually want to work with you. Price-wise, they are the most affordable option and cost much less than falcons. Harris hawks can either be flown from the fist, or they will follow on after you through the trees.
As long as birds have been used to hunt, pointing dogs have been used with them, and spaniels can also be deployed. Put simply, getting a bird is a good reason to add another dog to your kennel.
In the case of hawks such as gosses — named, of course, after the geese they sometimes take — you work them classically, flying them from the fist while flushing game up in front of them. As game is flushed the gos takes off, rising into the sky in pursuit of its quarry. The acrobatic takes can be dramatic — they are solid birds and were once known as ‘the cook’s bird’ due their reliability.
The trouble, however, if you’re starting out is that they can be temperamental and difficult at times. You need to be flying a gos three or four times a week to get it fit and
that’s after you’ve finished training it. The gos is a bird to aspire to.
With falcons the take can be even more breathtaking, with them flying high above watching the falconer and his dog working the open countryside. There is something almost spiritual about being out not long after dawn with your falcon. The stoop, which in terms of a peregrine can reach speeds of well over 100mph, is a sight to behold. Peregrines, like gosses, are captivating but hard work. Wonky, who is still in training, has been clocked at more than 133mph.
It is essential to recognise that if you don’t know what you’re doing, particularly with peregrines and gosses, birds will damage themselves. Teamwork between you and the bird is crucial and it takes time. As with so many things in our world, a mentor is a real asset. If you have a keen falconer living near you who has time on their hands, that’s ideal.
It is important to understand that the journey doesn’t start with getting a bird. Asking a local club if you can join and immersing yourself in the sport for a year at least is highly advisable. I’d also advise joining the British Falconers’ Club. Wales and Scotland also have hawking clubs.
“Respecting nature is a prerequisite in this fine sport”
You might like to think one day you’ll be out on the moors catching grouse — stick at it and you will be — but volunteering wherever you can is a good way to get there. My wife, Charlotte, runs CJ’S Birds of Prey in Cambridgeshire and we have a small selection of volunteers who are now close friends and who work with her. Most of them have been on our own courses and have expanded their knowledge of handling, husbandry and keeping birds of prey.
After you’ve experienced that first hunt, there are a number of courses you can go on; these are usually three to four days and give you an all-round grounding. The shorter courses tend to teach you about what it is to own a bird of prey, covering everything from the different species to how to house them, and how to keep your bird safe and healthy, whereas the longer courses cover all the above with the addition of falconry fieldcraft training for hunting and quarry identification.
I’m sure that many of you, if you aren’t lucky enough to have your own shoot, have struggled at times to get permission for a bit of pigeon decoying or rough shooting.
However, in more than 20 years, I’ve never been turned down when asking if I can hunt with my birds. Make of that what you will, but I suspect it’s because landowners like the idea of such a remarkable sport taking place on their land.
Dead on impact
One evening, we hadn’t gone much further than a mile when my dog came on point in a stubble field. Wonky was above me at 400ft. I walked forwards a few paces and a grey partridge broke in front of me, chirping on the wing. From behind me, Wonky descended — we clocked her at 117 miles. The partridge was dead on impact. There is no doubt that hawks and falcons take a bit of effort, but moments like that make you realise that it’s all worth it.