The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

If the building inhabited by the hawks is large, the upper part may be used as a loft wherein to moult them. If there are hawks of different kinds to be moulted, it must be divided into separate compartments, so that no two of very different size may be together. And each individual goshawk must have a room for itself. It would not be safe to turn falcons and tiercels loose together, nor a female with a male sparrow-hawk. Merlins and jacks may be left together, and in the same place with male hobbies; and probably peregrine tiercels with female shaheens, lanners with lannerets, and perhaps barbarys. But it is not very wise to risk the chumming together of any dissimilar hawks at a time when they are all kept in specially high condition, with no work to do, and ready for the mischief which Dr. Watts assures us is a natural concomitant of idleness. Of course if there is a living-room above the hawks, or above the furniture-room, it may serve most conveniently for a falconer’s or under-falconer’s bedroom, enabling him to be at hand by night as well as day in case there should be anything wrong, such as a hawk hanging by her jesses from the perch, or a scuffle amongst hawks moulting in the same compartment.

At six o’clock in summer, and as soon as it is light in winter, the falconer should be in the hawks’ room. If newly-caught hawks are there, they will be in a compartment from which all daylight has been excluded. Taking them one by one on the fist, he will put on their hoods, and then, lighting a candle, or admitting enough light, he will search for their castings under the screen-perch. If any one of them which has had castings the day before should not have yet cast, he must either put her back on the perch in the dark, or else, if she is far enough advanced in training for this, hand her over to an under-falconer to be carried till she has performed that operation. Under the place occupied by each hawk the pellet should be looked for and examined before it is thrown away with the sweepings of soiled sawdust collected under the perches. As the falconer ascertains that each hawk has cast up a healthy pellet, well-shaped and free from oily mucus, he will be doing no harm if he presents her with a mouthful or two of food, by way of a morning salutation, and just to show that there is no ill-will.

Then if it is a fine morning, there will probably be a hawk or two which may with advantage be pegged out, either in the sunshine, if she is fond of it, or under the cool shade of a tree. At anyrate, there will be a hawk which will be none the worse for half an hour’s carrying; and if there are merlins, it will be none too early to fly them to the lure. Every falconer, each time he rises, ought to take note of the weather, marking especially the direction and strength of the wind, and should do his best to forecast how the day will turn out. If he sees reason to expect a stormy afternoon, he will prepare to fly the hawks as early as he can; whereas, if it is already blowing or raining hard, he may think it best to provide for the possibility of a late start, taking the chance of an improvement in the weather at midday, or later. He should decide betimes which hawks are certain not to be taken out to the field, and make sure that their allowance of food is ready to be given them early in the day. Such hawks may generally be put out early in the morning, and provided with tirings, at which they may pull away contentedly on their blocks till it is time either to fly them to the lure, or to give them their ration on the fist. In the game-hawking season there will be a consultation with the keeper as to the country to be visited and the dogs to be taken out; and the falconer, having an eye to the direction of the wind, will plan out provisionally the sort of tactics which it will be best to adopt in beating the ground. Beaters and markers should also be secured, and directed as to the order of the day’s proceedings, whether the business in hand is grouse-hawking, lark-hawking, or any other form of sport for which these attendants are required.

After breakfast, on sunshiny days, there will generally be candidates for the bath. Fresh water must be brought; and in very cold weather a cup or two of hot water may be added, to take off the chill. Each hawk, after bathing, should have an hour at least to dry and air herself in the sun and wind. In emergencies, on cloudy days, the old falconers used to dry their hawks after bathing by holding them with their backs to a fire. Hawks do not usually care to take a bath much before eleven o’clock; and they should not be indulged with one after half-past twelve. Those which have bathed will, of course, not be ready to fly till well on in the afternoon, especially as they will have had a very light feed in the early morning, as it is not good to let a hawk bathe on a quite empty stomach. The falconer will generally like to be present while the hawks bathe, so that he will not be ready to start for the field, even with those that have not bathed, much before noon. This hour, moreover, is full early for peregrines and most of the larger hawks, which are apt to be slack in the pursuit of their quarry when they have, or at least think they have, the best part of the day before them in which to provide themselves with their one daily solid meal.

Hawks which are not yet thoroughly accustomed to the hood should be hooded up with care, so as to avoid any trial of their temper just as they are about to be called upon to do their best. Hawks, of course, ought always to be good at the hood; but some manifest an obstinate repugnance to it, as for instance Vesta, the very excellent game-falcon trained for the Old Hawking Club. The duties of the falconer in the field are referred to at length in the next chapter. As soon as he has returned—which will usually not be much, if at all, before dark—he must be satisfied that each hawk has had the full allowance of food which he had decided to be good for her, that her beak and talons are fairly clean, her feathers in good order, and her swivel and leash properly attached. Then each will be put in her accustomed place on the screen-perch, the leash being securely tied round the perch itself, as described in [Chapter III.], and the hood, if she is hooded, removed and hung up.

As for the hawks, if any, which, not being destined for the field, have been left at home, either at blocks on the lawn, or indoors, some person will have been left to shift their blocks as they become exposed to the sun, to carry them for a specified time, and perhaps to fly some of them to the lure. Every trained hawk, unless she is put down to moult, or is being flown at quarry, should be exercised daily to the lure or the fist—merlins twice, and all others once. The methods of giving exercise have been already described; but it must be remembered that when once a hawk has been entered the more real flying in the field she gets the better. Otherwise you are between the horns of a dilemma. If you give no exercise the hawk grows heavy, stale, and lazy. If you fly her too much to the lure she may grow too fond of it, and less keen at wild quarry. Good practical falconers are thus rather averse to a too free use of the lure with peregrines and lanners. On the other hand, I have found that merlins cannot well have too much stooping at the lure. Rook-hawks, and others which are never expected to wait on at a height, may often be made to do a large amount of pretty fast flying when stooping at the dead lure. This sort of practice is of course not to be encouraged in the case of game-hawks or duck-hawks, as tending to lower their pitch, which it is the chief desire of the falconer to keep as high as possible. But long-winged hawks, even in the mere act of waiting on, especially in a strong wind, get a good breather and a good stretching of their wings, if they are always allowed to be uncertain in their own minds whether in the end it will be a partridge or a pigeon that they will have to come down for, or merely the dead lure.

As for the short-winged hawks, and for such others as will not keep on the wing willingly without going to perch, they must be exercised chiefly by the device known as calling off. The most effective plan is that mentioned in [Chapter VI.], where two men go out, and, standing at a distance from one another, alternately bring the hawk across the intervening space by showing the lure or the outstretched fist. If two men are not available the hawk may be deposited on a railing, gate, or post, and the falconer may walk away, hiding his hands, and when he is as far off as he likes, or as the hawk will allow him to go, may call her and reward her with a few morsels, and then put her down again for the operation to be repeated. A trained hawk will often follow the falconer about for a long time, as he walks along, waiting a while in expectation of being called, and, if disappointed, flitting to a nearer resting-place, or coming right up to him on the chance that his hand will be held out; and if it is not, betaking herself to a neighbouring tree or other convenient place. Such excursions as these, in a park or on the downs, with a favourite hawk always in sight, either in the air or on a conspicuous perch of her own choosing, afford an opportunity of indulging her with the best possible sort of weathering. It is the nearest approach which can safely be made to giving trained hawks their liberty.

It is a common thing with writers on hawking to recommend their readers, when a trained hawk is out of sorts, to put her on a pair of hack-bells, and turn her out to hack for a while. I desire to speak with all respect of a practice which has doubtless been often attempted with success; but I am compelled to say that my own experience is altogether unfavourable to any such experiment. Attempts that I have known made to keep trained hawks at hack have not only failed, but have over and over again entailed the loss of the bird operated upon, sometimes for a time, and sometimes permanently. A strong and clever hawk, even if she is a bit unwell, and even if she is weighted heavily, will manage to kill something, if she has a real mind to it; and even if she does not, her wanderings may lead her first out of sight, and then into some neighbouring field or place, where a stray gunner may make an end of her. I am not able to advise beginners to turn their hawks loose for any longer time than they themselves or some agent can be near at hand, unless it be in the case of a kestrel or hobby, or other hawk which has never killed wild birds regularly in fair flight.

No ordinary bad weather should deter a falconer from taking his long-winged hawks out to exercise. Rain, unless it is very heavy, will do a hawk no harm during the short time she is flying to the lure or being called off. Even if the rain is heavy, an umbrella can be held over the hawk as she is carried to the exercise-ground and back. Wind must be very high indeed before the trainer should hesitate to fly his hawks at exercise. When they are to be merely called off, they will, when sharp-set, if in good condition, face half a gale of wind. But the two men should, in this case, post themselves rather across wind, and not one exactly down-wind of the other; otherwise the hawk of the up-wind man will have her head always turned directly away from the other, and moreover, if she comes fast towards the latter, may be carried so far past him that she will not take the trouble to fetch up again, and struggle up-wind to a lure of which she has once been disappointed. A game-hawk, especially if it is a passager, should not be kept waiting on very long on a boisterous day. Should she, while in the air, catch sight of a wood-pigeon or house-pigeon down-wind, and give chase, she may be out of sight in a moment, and, if the quarry takes the air, may go miles before you can run or ride five hundred yards. The best hawks rather enjoy flying in a very high wind, and seem to take an obvious pride in exerting their mastery over it. Their stoops at the lure in such weather are often exceptionally fine; and the tremendous pace at which the wind enables them to come down, evidently affords them much inward satisfaction.