Falconry is – or was, it is an ancient
sport – hierarchical. At the peak was the Gyrfalcon, the emperor's or king’s
bird. The Peregrine came next as the lord’s falcon and the Hobby and Merlin
were respectively for the squire and the lady. Below them, for the common man
were hawks – the Goshawk and Sparrowhawk. Falcons have longer and finer wings
and a shorter tail than hawks and also dark eyes. They hunt by flying above
their prey and stooping – folding their wings and plummeting to strike a blow
with their feet. Hawks on the other hand, with their more rounded wings and
long tails, are at home in woodland, twisting and turning through trees to
snatch their quarry with their talons. They have yellow eyes and a savage
demeanor: they are the Mike Tyson of the skies as opposed to the D’Artagnan of
their falcon cousins. For an account of taming and flying a Goshawk, the recent
Samual Johnson Prize winner, H is for Hawk, is without peer.
For falconers the ne plus ultra is flying
Peregrines over grouse. It is the pitting of two of the fastest and most agile
of birds in the theatre of heather moorland – some of the most beautiful
countryside in Britain. On a sparkling, warm October day on the North York
Moors we were able to watch it, something I have wanted to do all my life, and
it did not disappoint.
We met outside the house in the late
morning sun. The falconers laid out blocks, or perches, on the lawn and the
dozen or so birds hooded their wings and sunbathed. The females – or falcons –
are bigger than the tiercels and the immature plumage of both sexes is browner,
maturing to black white and grey. One bird, bigger and with a light grey back
was a quarter Gyrfalcon. As we chatted it became apparent that they were
deliberately killing time. Successful falconry is all about balance of food.
Too much and the bird isn’t interested in hunting; too little and they haven’t
the energy. The optimum condition has a wonderful word, ‘yarak’, to describe
it. The falcons were a little too close to the previous day’s afternoon feed to
be on peak form.
This was proven by the first flight of the
day by a young bird. For a glider pilot it was a perfect day with the sky
dotted by cumulus clouds showing the presence of thermals. For the young falcon
it was ecstasy and within a minute he was out of sight – probably two thousand
feet above us and just visible through binoculars. His owner swung the lure, a
feather covered piece of meat, with more hope than expectation as the falcon
gambolled in his element.
A puff of feathers and the rearing pull-up
of the Peregrine before she swooped to bind on her prey told of a kill. As we
approached her on the ground, she fixed us with a gimlet eye while tearing at
her prey. The delighted falconer let her feast before tempting her with a
morsel of meat back onto his fist. She shook her feathers in the sunlight and
everyone smiled at the privilege of seeing one of the great sights of the wild
– a wild that slid away into the verdant valley that culminated in Whitby and the North
Sea.
Joy it was to be alive.
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