The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

When you have taken up your hawk, if you intend to fly her again, contrive that the body of the lark is held in the palm of your hand, and the neck alone protrudes between the forefinger and the base of the thumb. Then, when the brain has been eaten, and you have thrown away the beak and as much of the rest of the head as you conveniently can, let her think, or try to think, that there is no more to be had. If, on the other hand, you intend to feed her up, let her eat the rest of the lark, or almost all, and, as she finishes it, slip on the hood, and let her pull through the last few mouthfuls. Or, as the remains of the lark may be too bony to pull through easily, you may substitute a morsel of sheep’s heart, which she can more easily dispose of. A jack which has had half a lark in the morning, and three or four heads already in the afternoon, will be generally too much gorged if allowed to take the whole of his last lark. And some female merlins may, under like circumstances, be considered to have had enough before they have quite finished their lark. I have generally found that about a three-quarter crop in the evening is as much as it is wise to give.

Larks should always be flown up-wind; that is to say, when they get up to windward, and not to leeward of the hawk. A down-wind slip is very seldom satisfactory. If the lark is good you see nothing of the flight, and are dependent on your markers for finding the hawk, if she kills. The time lost is also often regrettable. It is not likely that with the first lark flown by any trained merlin you will have a kill. Only twice, I think, do I remember such a thing to have occurred. But the escape of several larks at first will do you no manner of harm. Even if your merlin refuses, you need not be at all discouraged. One of the most deadly merlins I ever had, when first taken out, refused seven larks in succession, and did not kill till her twelfth flight. But after that first kill she never refused again. If a trained hawk persists in refusing, or leaving the good larks, in hopes of getting a bad one, the case is serious. Possibly the reason may be that she is out of condition. But if it is her pluck that is wanting, you cannot expect to make much of her. In any case physic her, and give her two days’ rest. And the next time, if you can, fly her in company with a better merlin. If you should lose such a hawk for three or four days, and then take her up again, you may take her up cured. But you may take her up confirmed in her bad habit. When I took up Ruy Lopez, after three days out in a gale, he would not fly any but bad larks.

If, in the early days, your merlin puts in a lark, mark the place very exactly with your eye. You must consider whether you will drive him out for her or not. If the place is a thick hedge or big bush, I should be inclined not to attempt it. But if it is a place where you have a good chance of a second flight, as under the side of an isolated rick, or under a hurdle where there are no sheep, I should gratify the hawk by assisting her in the moment of need, when you can be so useful to her. If you can see the lark crouching and hiding himself, do not pick him up with the hand, but drive him out with your foot or the end of your rod. And do so when the hawk, from the top of the hurdle, or rick, or wherever she has taken perch, is looking the right way. A kill on such occasions will encourage her to wait on another occasion till you can help her in the same way. The form shown by a lark that has been put in and routed out is generally not so good as before he put in. But there are many exceptions. A lark got up in the open down before Eva, probably the best hawk I ever had. But before she could get to him, he fell without a blow, right in the open. Eva was then young, and rather fat, and wanted a hard flight, so I was in two minds whether I would not leave this weak-spirited lark, and go on and find a better one. Either the lark got up of his own accord before I had decided, or else I resolved to fly him; anyhow, when he started for the second time he went right up into the sky. There was a ringing flight of immense height; and after a great many stoops the lark was bested, and came down into a field where there were stooks of wheat. Eva sat on the top of a stook with her mouth open; the lark underneath, doubtless in no better plight. I might have walked miles and not found a lark which afforded me so much sport, and the hawk such a lung-opener.

The first time your merlin puts in a lark, do not take her on your fist, unless she goes away from the spot. Let her take perch close at hand. Be very careful indeed to drive out the fugitive towards her, so that she sees it go away. By this means she will see that there is no deception; that it is really the same lark; and that you have done her the service to rout it out. But on subsequent occasions it is best always to call the hawk to the fist before you put up the quarry. Otherwise he may very possibly go off when she is not looking, especially if the hawk is on the ground, as she will be if the lark has put in to a tuft of grass, or in clover, or, as they will when hard pressed, in stubbles. À propos of putting in, remember always that the country for lark-hawking must be, if you are to have good flights, even more open than that necessary for rooks. It requires so small a shelter to conceal a lark. Even the high grass which often fringes a road across the downs, a patch of nettles or thistles, an old stone wall, or a waggon, will tempt a faint-hearted ringer to come down. He comes down to almost certain death; for the man is there, in alliance with the hawk. But the ringing flight is spoilt; and that is what you do not want to occur. The better the hawk, the more ready the lark is to put in. So that the mere length of flight does not prove much as to the excellence either of pursuer or pursued, unless you know from experience what is the ability of the former.

Larks, for hawking purposes, may be divided into three kinds. First there is the “ground” lark—generally deep in moult—who does not mount at all, but makes off as hard as he can fly towards the nearest place where he thinks he can save himself. These larks are sometimes pretty fast, and take a good deal of catching, dodging the stoops by shifting to right or left, and sometimes avoiding a good many. But more often, especially in an enclosed country, they are wretched creatures, taken easily by a fast hawk, either in the air or by being driven into insufficient cover. These are the sort of larks that beginners are sometimes very proud of killing. The true falconer detests them as a sad nuisance. It is true that when they are fast and clever, they improve the hawk’s footing powers, and give her a sharp burst of hard flying. Such a flight serves as a short gallop at full speed does to a horse in training. But from the sporting point of view it is objectionable. Fortunately, on the open down, it is not common.

Secondly, there are the “mounting” larks, which go up and try to keep the air. The original ambition of these larks is to fairly out-fly the hawk, and never let her get above them. But at moulting-time they can seldom hope to accomplish this if the hawk is a fast one in really good condition. Sometimes, going wide of them, and making an upper-cut, she will bind to them at the first shot. But this is rare. Generally there are several stoops; and the whole business very accurately resembles a coursing match. The stoops are made from all sorts of distances,—short and long, upwards and downwards, with the wind and against it. I have seen a stoop by a trained merlin—a jack, rather—which was 300 yds. long, measured along the ground, to which must be added something for the height. Very often, when the lark has escaped one stoop by a hair’s-breadth, and feels a conviction that next time he will not escape at all, he drops headlong towards a place of supposed shelter, with the hawk close at his heels. The harder he is pressed, the more indifferent will be the hiding-place with which he is fain to be content. Before a first-rate hawk he will go to a bare hurdle, a flat-sided rick, or a tuft of grass, whereas if he has less trouble in shifting, he will pass over all these attractions, and continue to throw out the pursuer—though with exhausting efforts—till he can get to a thick hedge or a substantial spinny. With this kind of lark you may have more flights, more running, and more excitement with a moderate merlin than with those of the very first quality. The latter are a bit too good for the work, and make the flight too short. Strangers who come out hawking and see a mounting lark so taken, are apt to say: “What a bad lark to be caught so soon!” It is often not the badness of the lark, but the goodness of the hawk, which makes short work of the flight. The mounting lark would always be a ringer if the hawk was not fast enough to get above him quickly.

The third sort of lark is the veritable “ringer.” With the start he has, he keeps ahead of the hawk, climbing up in spiral circles. Why not in a straight line? I believe no one can tell the reason. Possibly he finds that he can get on more pace by having the wind now in front, now at the back, and between whiles at the side. The curious thing is that the hawk adopts the same tactics. The one bird may be circling from right to left, and the other in the contrary direction. Neither seems to guide the direction of his rings by any reference to those which the other is making. It is now a struggle which can get up the fastest. And it is astonishing to what a height such flights will sometimes go. Not in a bad country; for there there will always be cover available after the quarry has gone up a little way. And he will not be such a fool as to stand the racket of a shot in the air, when by dropping into a stout hedge or plantation he can make sure of his escape. As soon as a lark is 800 ft. high, he can drop, almost like a stone, into any covert within a radius of 200 yds. from the spot just under him—allowance being made, of course, for the effect of wind. But 800 ft. is not high for a ringing flight. At least there is nothing at all unusual in it. A lark does not go out of sight until he is much above that height; and it is no extraordinary thing for him to do this. I have heard it said that merlins go up after larks till they are themselves lost to sight. But it is very seldom that any man is directly below the hawk at the time when she is highest. I know one case, however, in which a jack-merlin came right over the markers as they were running down-wind, more than half a mile from the start. He must have been very nearly over their heads when he went up out of their sight. But that hawk was never seen again. It is, of course, quite possible that such a thing should occur. But I have never seen any country in England where it is at all likely. For from such a height—nearly half a mile high—there would always be a safe place into which the quarry might drop. And if hard pressed, he would do so. When a lark keeps up as long as this, it is generally because he knows that he is the better man of the two. And before that time the hawk will also have found this out.

Larks are in moult from the beginning of August, which is the earliest time that an eyess merlin can fly, till the middle of September—in some years till nearly the end. During this time, easy ones will mostly be found in the stubbles from which the corn has just been carried. Stronger and older larks may be found on the open down, but not in any great numbers. In years of drought, many will get to the fields where roots are growing. At these moulting larks, a merlin may be flown six or eight times in an afternoon. But what was said in the chapter on “Game-Hawking” about leaving off with a hard flight and a kill, is still more applicable to merlins than peregrines. These little hawks can in addition be flown in the early morning. But though I have done this occasionally, I doubt its being a good practice, and should prefer, if the weather is settled, to give stooping at the lure before breakfast, and wait till past midday for the field. But when the weather is bad you must go out when you can. The biggest score that I know to have been made in a day, flying both morning and evening, is ten, which Colonel Sanford killed with one of his merlins. I have myself killed ten in a day with a single hawk; but one of them was taken by her in a double flight, and therefore counts only for a half. Each of these hawks was a specially good-tempered and well-mannered hawk. For any merlin to take six larks single-handed in one day is a decided feat. The most I have known to be killed in any one year by a merlin single-handed is 106, the score of Jubilee in 1897; and the highest average I have known made is fifty-nine out of sixty-five flights—a percentage of more than 90 per cent. This was achieved by the merlin Sis, which made the extraordinary score of forty-one out of forty-two successive flights, the one miss being a ringer at which she was thrown off when the head of another lark was hardly down her throat—before she had shaken herself, or had time to look round.

As soon as the larks have moulted, they become practically all ringers. Such larks have never yet been taken regularly. Usually the merlins begin to refuse them in the latter part of September. The latest lark I have killed was on a 7th of November. To take winter larks it would be necessary to have a cast of very first-rate merlins, which had never, upon any pretext, left a moulting lark. With these it is possible that a few might be taken; but after very long flights. And what of the unsuccessful flights? They would go so far that I fear the hawks must certainly be lost. A merlin which is good enough to take even one moulted lark is good enough to find her living anywhere; and I doubt if she would trouble to come back after a long unsuccessful flight for any reason, sentimental or otherwise!

Double flights at larks are very pretty, and also very deadly. If you throw off together one merlin which mounts quickly, and another which is a good footer, you will rarely be beaten during the moulting season; and when you do meet with a first-rate ringer, will see as real a bit of sport as man can imagine. Occasionally you may have a double flight without intending to do so. Eva had made two stoops at a very high ringer, and brought him down some yards, when a wild female merlin joined in. Stoop for stoop they alternatively played their strokes, as if they had been trained together. After some twenty of these alternative shots, the lark was taken, high in the air. But not until we picked up Eva on the dead lark, half a mile away, did anyone in the field know whether it was she or the wild hawk that had made the fatal stoop. In other years I have had many joint flights in the same way; and on one occasion two wild merlins joined forces with a trained one, and the lark ran the gauntlet for quite a long time of the three chance allies. I confess, however, that there are objections to the double flight with merlins. It may be from stupidity, but I have never been able to keep the peace between the partners. After the take, but before you can possibly get up, there is a scrimmage on the ground, even if there has not been a chevy in the air, which is not only undignified, but also most trying to the temper of the hawk which has footed the lark. Of course when you do come up you can separate the combatants, and reward the one which has been worsted in the squabble. But in the meantime, how much mischief may have been done to the feathers? In heron-hawking, where two falcons are always flown, the empty-handed one is taken down to the pigeon, and, with good management, she accepts the situation pretty cheerfully. But merlins in high condition are exceedingly hot-tempered, and often violent. No doubt the double flight can be accomplished with them by the aid of patience and tact. Mr. Freeman was able to fly his merlins well in casts. And it is only with a cast that winter larks could be attempted. Any falconer who could succeed in taking them right through the winter would have accomplished a greater feat than that of which Louis XIII. was so proud.