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theres violence in this. honest, a priori and necessary it is awe-inspiring in its , sudden-ness, its elegant precision and its stark conclusion:talons digging into the quarry , a quick snap of a neck, and then tearing... It is captivating, but it is not entertainment. It predates modern bloodlust, predates firearms and the coliseum. It is healthy; perhaps it is honorable. And for a falconer, the moment it appears is as fulfilling as it is privileged.

alconry probably started with somebody looking at a wild hawk and watching it catch a duck or something, and thinking, If I trained that hawk to do that for me, I could be eating that duck. emma Ford told me that. shes one of the worlds foremost falconers and the woman who, with her husband steve, started the British school of Falconry at gleneagles, scotland. the school offers a look at falconry and a chance to have a hawk land on your arm, among other experiences. I visited a location in Vermont as well, but well get to that later. emmas assessment of falconrys beginnings is as close to an exact history as were likely to get. of its precise origin, all thats known is that falconrythat is, the taking of wild quarry in its natural state with trained birds of preyhails from preliterate times and probably started in Asia. It spread west, became immensely popular with european royalty and eventually found its way to the states,where its currently practiced by nearly 4,000 people, and many more worldwide.the oldest living example of the tradition might be in Kazakhstans falconers (they sometimes call the practiceberkutchy), who are today offered as many looks at tourist cameras as they are quarry they hunt with eagles, but in . fact most birds of prey can be trained to hunt with a humanif not for a human, exactly . Why the distinction is important and why someone would take the time to train a bird in the first place are interesting questions, with answers that might lie in our very origins. FIrst e ncounter. For me, from my point of view, I looked over my next-door neighbors wall when I was 8 years old and I was eyeball to eyeball with a falcon, Ford recalls.the minute I saw this falcon, I was fascinated. For emma, it was the falcon next door. For others, she says, its that when they see a hawk they feel a certain kind of affinity theres a sudden ... and real, urgent need to get closer to hawks

and to learn more about them. It happens with some people when they handle them. [Its worth noting that in the language of falconry, hawk is often used as a generic term to mean any bird of prey. See the glossary in this article for more clarifications.] standing in Vermont with one of the schools Master Falconers, Jay tuttle, I felt no such compulsion toward the harris hawk to which I was introduced, elmer. however, I was admittedly awe-struck by his wild-ness, and moreover by the amount of interaction he offered.When elmer landed on my armmy fist, in the parlance, which was covered by a gloveIm not sure what struck me first: that he seemed to weigh almost nothing but obviously had tremendous power, especially in his talons, or that he regarded a strangers arm as a safe perch. It is the latter that begs consideration, for unlike dogs, Ford tells me that hawks do not seek affection nor do they take pleasure in pleasing. so why did elmer decide to leave his perch for my fist? Ive come to the conclusion that its because I was impersonating a falconer, and so he believed I was on his team. teAMWorK. Falconers hunt game with their falcons, sometimes with the help of dogs.Whether its rabbits, grouse or whatever, the dogs find the quarry and the humans flush it out. to the falcon, the dog and the human are essentially support staff for the main eventthe falcons eventwhich is the actual kill. the falcon hunts with a team because it has been trained to understand that teamwork maximizes its chance of success. It also knows it will be fed at the end of the night regardless of what happens on the hunt. It takes months to build this understanding, and the methods used to achieve it are centuries-old, basically involving a series of rewarded behaviors. step to the fist, reward. Fly to the fist, reward. Fly to the fist from a little further away And so on. eventually , the hawk can be entered, or introduced to quarry. And then the fun begins.

the hunt. massive amount of things have to happen A for it to go right, especially to catch a grouse. the falconer has to make the right decisions, the dog has to play its part perfectly and then , what youre waiting for is when the falcon, which is very high, shuts its wings and is stooping like a bolt from the blue.the noise... Its like ripping canvas, quite a loud noise. You can hear the wind just tearing through its feathers... Its doing its best to catch the grouse and all you can do is watch. stoop is the term for a falcons dive, which can see the bird reach speeds of up to 217mph (and likely faster). Falcons hunt other birds, and their beaks have a special adaptation that facilitates neck-snapping. Plunging through a flock of pigeons, for example, a falcons quarry is dead before it knows what hit it. In the case of grouse its less easy making , successful hunts that much more rewarding. While the falconer is happyas much for the fulfillment of the training as for the meal the falcon also has emotions of a sort, Ford says. Were only successful maybe one in seven attempts. [the falcons] are very happy if they catch something and, similarly if they , fail to catch something you can see that theyre not at all happythey dont have the . same expressions as a dog, but some get quite stroppy if it goes wrong. And if what goes wrong is on a team members failure, Ford says the falcons dont hold back.Its just us, and our pointers who find the game, and the falcons that catch it. And the dogs have a job to do: they have to hold point, hold steady until the falcon is in position And if the dog makes a mistake, you can see the falcon is really not too happy about the dog. If, on the other hand, the falcon is successful, it is then distracted with a lure and a reward while the human pockets the game, and everyones happy Its a bit like . a symphony in that it all has to come together, says Ford. But if you put a massive amount of work into it, the hawk has worked really hard, then god yes, youre thrilled that its been absolutely successful.

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Maintenance. the flying weightthe weight at which a bird of prey is both willing and able to hunt is a crucial measurement in falconry and , its different for each bird.too fed, theres no incentive to go after quarry nor to return to the falconers fist. not fed enough, theres no energy to hunt. half ounce of difference a will affect the hawks performance the next day says tuttle. Kazakh hunters feel an , eagles keel (breastplate) to gauge its weight, while most falconers weigh their hawks on scales.Whichever method, dedicated training is required to understand the subtleties of a hawks performance and maintenance. in the United States, it officially takes two years to become a falconer. there are federal and state regulations, exams, fees and inspections to navigate. Jay and another Master Falconer/instructor at the Vermont school, Dawn Decrease, have been through it all. Following that, it can take months or years to train a hawk, and only 48 hours or so for that hawk to lose its training,meaning hawks need constant work over their lifetime. as Jay tells it, nearly 70 percent of hawks in the wild dont make it past year one, often due to starvation resulting from competition, inexperience or lack of knowledge (if they were orphaned, for example). in this, falconers are teaching young hawks necessary skills they ideally would be taught in any case, but theyre also providing a safety net of sorts.the lengths to which Jay , Dawn, emma and others go to understand birds of prey and to build relationships with them are extreme, and go a long way to helping all of us understand a small part of our bigger world. Of course, not all hawks enjoy such relationships with humans.

MAn Vs. BIrd. While birds of prey are almost universally admired from a distance, close encounters can provoke all manner of reaction.When primal instincts kick in (ours or theirs), the results can be lethaland not just for the birds. Three stories: In February oF 2010, a hand surgeon in Virginia shot and killed a hawk in his yard. As the local nBc channel 4 reported,thomas shepler claimed that the raptor had become fixated on his pet squirrel, oedipus, which the doctor and his wife had long ago found orphaned and raised,even allowing it to sleep in their bedroom at night.shepler threw a crowbar at the hawk hoping to scare it off, but that had no effect. desperate to protect oedipus, shepler retrieved an antique shotgun from his home, returned to the yard and killed the hawk.A passing police officer heard the shot and investigated, found the doctor with the gun still in his hands, and arrested him. shepler was later charged with discharging a firearm in a public place and, perhaps ironically, cruelty to animals. In December oF 2011, a pigeon lover in scotland shot and killed a falcon that had been routinely employed to scare pigeons away from a government building. According to The Scotsman newspaper and the uKs Daily Record, falconer ryan dryburgh was exercising naph, his peregrine-gyrfalcon cross, at a soccer stadium when a gust of wind carried the bird away. tracking a radio transmitter attached to the falcons leg, dryburgh and two other falconers followed naph to the house of Andrew hutchison, an elderly man who kept pigeons. upon dryburghs arrival, hutchison reportedly confessed to shooting naph in the gardenthen fled in a car, racing off with the falcons body. the falconers gave chase and eventually found the radio transmitter in a stream, still attached to naphs severed leg, but the rest of the falcons body was never recovered. In court, hutchison initially disputed the entire incident, telling the judge, theyre all telling lies. Its a witches coven. eventually, however, he relented, admitting that hed killed the falcon because it was on the back of one of his pigeons.that hawk tried to get away with murder, he said.

BuIlt to KIll.

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Nostril tubercle: deflects airflow/ reduces air pressure in a stoop, allowing the falcon to breathe

Superior eyesight: roughly equivalent of a human reading a newspaper at 300 yards

Tomial tooth: notch in falcons beak specialized for severing/ snapping necks

Nictitating membranes:Almost like goggles, this third eyelid spreads tears and clears debris to help maintain vision in a stoop

Malar Stripe: dark feathers under eye potentially work like eye-black for athletes, reducing glare

From the Valentines day, 1922, edition of The New York Times eAgle KIlls A soldIer. Wounded Bird Clutches Captors Gun and Discharges It. sAntIAgo, chile, Feb. 13 (Associated Press).A curious story of a soldiers fatal struggle with a huge eagle in a mountain pass near los Andes last saturday is told by the newspapers here. the soldier shot the eagle and, thinking he had killed it, approached, but the bird had only suffered a broken wing and furiously attacked him. In the struggle which followed, the eagles claws clutched the trigger of the soldiers gun, which was discharged, the bullet entering the mans body. he died in the arms of his companions, who took his body and the wounded eagle, to los Andes.

tYPe s. In the language of falconry, birds of prey are termedhawkswhether they are falcons, hawks or eagles. They are divided into three groups: LoNGWINGS: Includes falcons, sych as ShoRTWINGS: hawks, including the peregrine, the saker and the gyrfalcon. sparrowhawks and the harris hawk. hunt Mainly hunt other birds in flight. ground game like rabbit, hare and groundnesting birds. BRoaDWINGS: Includes eagles and buzzards. suited for soaring over rolling countryside and mountains. like shortwings, broadwings hunt ground game.

FurnIture. The tools of falconry are known asfurniture. The most basic include:

to the legs of a falcon so the falconer can find the bird when its out of sight. usually used in pairs, with the pitch of one bell roughly a semitone different, resulting in a sound that carries farther than a melodious pairing would.
ooD: used to cover the eyes of a hawk; with longwings (which

ells: Attached

love: used to protect the falconer from his hawks talons. hunt other birds), its used to prevent them seeing other birds flying overhead and then wasting energy trying to leave the All information courtesy of emma Ford, the British school of falconers glove. Falconry and The Encyclopedia Britannica, with which emma Ford worked.

s J g

wIng lure:A lure on a line, often made of a birds wing or feathers

affixed to a bit of leather, swung in the air to recall a hawk.

esses: two

leather straps fastened around the ankles of the hawk, often with a ring to which a leash can be attached.

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the exPerIence. Falconry has shared some language with firearms (includingmusket,which is a male sparrow hawk), but otherwise has little in common with the tools that pushed it into the enthusiast column. one of the most important differences from modern hunting methods, as applies to hunter + rifle, is that falconry involves a specific sort of inter-species cooperation. on a hunt involving a falcon, a dog and a human, the falcon and the human are hunting cooperatively with the aim of killing the quarry. the dog is hunting to please the human. Its an incredible difference. there are very few examples of any sort of sport in the world where man gets to work in partnership with a predator,says Ford. one of the very few would be the Japanese, who have cormorants that catch fish for them and that sort of thing.Years ago, people used to train cheetahs to hunt for gazelle, but thats the only sort of idea that comes to mind. As such, falconry involves a sort of relationship to which humans are relatively unaccustomed, acclimated as we are to viewing animals in terms of service or pets. Yes, thats right, says Ford.Its not a dog, for example,that has a sense of loyalty which culminates in a desire to please people. Falcons only seek to please themselves; its basically a business relationship. You get very attached to them, but they dont get that attached to you. I mean, they might prefer you to an unknown person, but they only look to you to provide food and the opportunities to put them in the path of game where theyre going to be able to be successful and catch something. Walking across the field with Jay elmer , following alongside us in the distant trees, the relationship between falcon and falconer strikes me as incredibly profound. I wonder what other relationships could have been builtor exist to be built with the natural world. If theyre there, they doubtless would require the kind of complete immersion practiced by falconers, and they would likely stem from the same kind of shared goal between hawk and human that makes falconry possible and so enduring. Primal, privileged and demanding dedication, there is much compelling about falconry. But for all of its mysteries, its lasting appeal for falconers might be more simply put.As emma has it: Its a clich, but its the thrill of the chase. Visit equinoxresort.com to learn more about the British school of Falconry.

From top: Falcon catching a lure, harris hawk Elmer and falconer Jay Tuttle, and a list of flying weights

glossArY. A small selection of falconrys language: Bate: to attempt to fly off the falconers glove or a perch while restrained. Cast Off: Pushing the hawk airborne from the fist. Creance: A long line attached to a hawk in training to prevent it from flying away. Eyas: hawk taken from a nest in the wild or bred in captivity. Falcon: technically, the female peregrine falcon. Feed Up: to give a hawk its full days supply of food. Haggard: hawk trapped in its adult plumage. Manning: the initial stage of training at which trust is built with a hawk. Mantle: the act of a hawk covering a quarry with its wings. Mews: Indoor housing for hawks. Passager: hawk trapped in its first year. Quarry: Prey. Stoop: to dive from a height headfirst with wings closed at speed (falcons). Tiercel: Male falcon; from a word forthird, as male falcons are 1/3 smaller than females.

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