The Lure of Falconry

The other day I was intently photographing some birds atop a rain-tree at Purbachol when I heard a click behind and turned to find fellow birder Quazi Ahmed Hussain. We joined forces and spent some time looking, but found no unusual bird. So we decided to try our luck at another spot and headed back to the car parked near a field.

As we were walking along the road, a dark shape flew above the field towards us from the southeast. The sun was behind it. I could not see it clearly and thought it was a crow. Within a split second however it had dived to a spot perhaps five feet from us. It was then that we saw it was a kestrel –a type of falcon - and we were taken by surprise how close it had come. For its part, the kestrel was completely engrossed in catching a large yellow scorpion-like insect, which it ate in a second. We quickly took some pictures of the bird which soon took off in search of the next morsel.

What made this experience memorable was the closeness of the magnificent bird. The power - the life - that we sensed for the few seconds of this encounter was palpable.

Thinking later about the encounter, I began to understand how people are drawn to falconry. Hunting wild quarry in its natural state using birds of prey must surely magnify the excitement I had felt that day. Falconry, which began in Mesopotamia several thousand years ago, uses several types of birds such as falcons, hawks, eagles and owls. These birds can never be domesticated and must be trained to hunt. Arabs excelled in the sport which is practiced in many countries today. You need large spaces, wild game and lots of leisure time, so falconry has traditionally been a hobby of landed gentry.

A glimpse of modern falconry can be found in the book H for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. The author, an avid birder, decides to tame a goshawk (a large, powerful and fast hawk) for falconing. The absorbing book is an account of this training which included both physical and psychological adventures. Reading it, I learned about the superior eyes of the bird (how had that Purbachol kestrel seen its quarry from so far away when we had walked right past it?), its motor system that apparently connects muscles straight to the eye bypassing the brain, and its feathers signalling its moods. Prospective falconers should note the necessity of keeping the bird slightly hungry during training so it accepts the trainer - the bringer of food - as a friend.

The force of life and death, raw and primeval, is never far from its pages. It is the same force that we sensed in Purbachol that winter morning.

We are extraordinarily lucky to have wintering kestrels so close to us. To see one, you will need binoculars or a large telephoto lens on your camera. Go on the Purbachol road and, after crossing the Balu, keep scanning the top of the poles that spread out over the land. You might find a kestrel perched on one of them.

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