Europe > United Kingdom > Cotswolds > Gloucestershire > Bird watching > Articles > Faclonry Experience Day

Take any faintly ludicrous late 20th century popular pastime. In-line skating, say. Just how likely is it that anybody's still going to be cavorting around on a pair of wheeled-up boots in five thousand years' time?

Yet, that's about how long falconry - the sport of flying birds of prey at wild quarry - has been around. And the basic system of training, keeping and hunting with raptors has stayed pretty much unchanged over that time, too. If you time-travelled any one of Ghengis Khan's myriad falconers into a modern hawking set-up he'd be more than familiar with the leashes, jesses and other falconry 'furniture' still used. Familiar, too, with the sound of the tinny leg bells, and with the smell of greased leather and musky feathers. And with the time-stopping sight of a peregrine falcon soaring up into the sky and then stooping down at 140 mph or so; or with the feel of a goshawk, yellow eyes glaring, wings beating, pushing down on the glove as it launches itself in pursuit of a rabbit.

Falconry in Britain today probably hasn't been so popular since Elizabethan times. Then it was an aristocratic pursuit, bound by laws and statutes of the 'a gyrfalcon for an emperor...a kestrel for a knave' kind. Now it's a field sport open to all. Or to anybody who has the time and passion to learn how to train and fly a bird of prey. Though there are an estimated 35,000 keepers of birds of prey in the UK, only a thousand or so are falconers who actually hunt with their birds.

The National Birds of Prey Centre in Newent is run by third-generation falconer, Jemima Parry-Jones. Established in 1967 by her father, Philip Glasier, the centre captive-breeds birds for falconry and conservation, nurses injured wild birds and, above all, gives daily displays of trained birds in flight. At the NBPC they believe that, breeding programmes apart, the only reason to keep raptors is to fly them. The centre runs intensive courses to train would-be falconers, and also popular 'falconry experience' days.

In early September I joined six people who were going 'backstage' at the NBPC for a day to get closer to the trained birds. Much closer. On the flying ground, Mark Parker the centre's head falconer, handed out gauntleted leather gloves. "Left hand only - falconers need the right hand free for everything from handling the leash and jesses to putting on hoods. And if your hawk bates, that's flies off the fist in a temper, you're going to need that hand to help her back on again." As an added bonus, I realised, new falconers get to learn a vocabulary of Medieval English for free.

A Harris hawk - russet and black plumage, dark brown eyes and strong yellow feet, its beak and talons the blued-steel colour of surgical instruments - was launched into the air. Heather Clarke, a small gobbet of beef poked between her gloved finger and thumb, held out her arm. The hawk swung down to ground level, flew in a strong beat and glide rhythm, and then swooped up to land on her fist, beak pulling greedily at the meat. From Heather's glove the hawk was tempted to fly across to her husband's fist in search of more fly-thru' fast food, and from there back and forth across the circle of coursees, from hand to hand, in a game of avian 'frisbee.'

The reasons why the seven neo-raptorphiles had come for the experience day were varied. Heather and Peter had been given the day by their daughter as a 30th wedding anniversary present. "We like birds, and we used to breed them...that was budgies though. Now, I think, our daughter wants to give us more 'country' interests." John Cassidy, on the other hand, was a keen amateur ornithologist who watched birds of prey in the wild, "but you can't get as close to them as this. Here I’m learning about the details in plumage and flight close-up."

Nowadays practically all falconer's birds are captive bred. The legislation enacted in the 60s and 70s to save dwindling raptor populations worldwide pushed falconers into learning how to breed bird species that had never bred in captivity before. Captive-bred birds are easy to come by now, but the time needed to look after and fly a bird is still a rare commodity. "We had 400 people on experience days last year," explained Mark, "and only five of those went on to do the five-day falconry course. After a day handling the birds and talking with us, people realise just what's involved."

Mark was an ex-London policeman who'd flown falcons and hawks for 14 years, and worked at the centre for the past five of them. " Falconry is 24 hours a day. It's a way of life - but it's worth it." We were watching Annie, another centre falconer, luring a young lanner through a pattern of stoops and dives after a pair of meat-garnished, dried wings swung on a long cord. "When you fly a bird loose, after you've trained it to follow the lure, you're dancing with that falcon. You can't make it do something; if you get it right it'll come back to you, if you don't there's nothing to stop it flying away."

The 'flying away' part was on everybody's mind. Especially when the group stepped over the barrier separating a line of lanner falcons from the public. We were taught the calm lifting of the fist under the hawks chest to encourage it step up onto the glove. "When the bird stepped onto my glove and I undid the leash my heart was racing," gasped Neil Pocock, "I wasn't frightened of the bird really but my heart was, "boom, BOOM, BOOM!"

An even bigger 'boom boom!' was to come. Having mastered handling a bag of sugar weight bird, Mark brought out something weighing close to a full basket of Saturday morning shopping; an eight pound African black eagle. Christine Reynolds was first to put on the heavy eagle-proof oven-glove, and take the bird from Mark. Her arm sagged towards the ground. "It's so heavy, and I’m only little so it's looking me right in the eye. And its beak...it's huge." Taking the bird onto my fist, it wasn't so much the fierce gaze meeting my eye, but the grip of the eagle that transfixed me. Heavy muscular pulses ran through the bird's feet, squeezing the triple layers of leather and my hand inside, as if rehearsing perfect kills.

Perfect kills, if small in number, are the aim of falconry. The experience day was intended to give a feel for falconry as a whole. So the afternoon was going to be for hunting. "All I ask is that you don't judge field sports with emotion," pleaded Mark, as he and Annie loaded two Harris hawks into travelling boxes in the Landrover "We'll see what happens this afternoon, but, remember, as a falconer you're just a close-up spectator at a totally natural event."

In thick hedged, bramble tangled, tree dotted farmland 'Bailey' and 'Lambe' had their swivels and leashes slipped, and were thrown up into the air. The two birds flapped up into a tree, watching intently as we began beating through the scrub and long grass beneath them. As we moved forward they followed us, using fence posts, bushes and high branches as vantage points. John, red faced in the hot sun, thrashing at the thick cover, gave a weary smile, "Basically, we're working for them. Doing all the hard work whilst they sit around watching us. They seem to be saying 'Come on! Over here! Keep it up!'"

It was actually a partnership between us and the hawks. There was a sudden flurry by Mark's legs. A flash of brownish grey. An equal streak of feathers and talons and fierce eye plummeting from out of a tree. A double crash in the undergrowth. But Lambe had missed the rabbit. Mark called Lambe back to the fist, rewarded her with a gobbet of meat and cast her off into the trees. "This is what the day's about - seeing what it's like to hunt with hawks and just how difficult it is and how rarely anything gets killed." Not discouraged we continued to beat the long grass and brambles.

Being out in the country with the hawks following us along the hedges and swooping low over our heads, the tinkling of their bells carrying on the light breeze, the rich smell of elderberries and blackberries and bracken crushed by our enthusiastic stickwork rising in the heat. That made sense of falconry. Everybody had come with an open-mind on hunting with hawks, but now they were all enthusiastic. Helen, Neil's wife, was still unsure if she wanted to see a rabbit actually caught, "but I love the walking and all that part of the hunting. I was quite nervous around the birds in the centre, but walking in the country with them flying around your head seems the most natural thing in the world."

Articles

• More from Jasper Winn
• More on the same theme