The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

In hot and sunny weather some caution is advisable in flying hawks to the lure, as well as in the field. For when in high condition, even if they are hungry, they are sometimes disposed to go soaring, and, as it were, forgetting all about mundane affairs, disappear in airy circles down-wind. Eyesses will, it is true, generally come back when they are tired of soaring. They are reminded, sooner or later, by an internal feeling that there is such a thing as a garnished lure in the foreground. But suppose a passage peregrine, after stretching her wings for five minutes at a height of a thousand feet, to catch sight of a wood-pigeon crossing the open down. It would be almost too much to expect that she should resist the temptation. In the cool of the day, morning and evening, hawks very seldom soar if they are sharp-set, and have had the chance of a bath most fine days. It is from nine to four o’clock in summer that there is the most risk of it; and hobbies, which are greatly addicted to the habit, should not be flown during these hours in fine weather, unless the owner is prepared to wait twenty minutes, or even longer, for my lord or my lady to finish airing herself in the sky. Very special care must be taken of all hawks during the migration season—that is, for some weeks after the latter part of September and the beginning of April. At the former period, indeed, it is barely safe to let hobbies wait on at all; and the steadiest peregrines and merlins are apt to feel more or less strongly the restlessness born of migratory instincts. Many favourite hawks which seemed a few days ago to be as safe as tame cats, have been known at migrating time to develop quite suddenly an ungovernable wish to travel, and have cleared for foreign parts when they had an opportunity, without a moment’s warning or a word of leave-taking.

Each hawk, after flying to the lure, will be immediately fed up, usually on the way back to the hawk-house or the lawn. As a rule, the earlier a hawk can be fed up the better, for she will be the sooner ready for the field on the next day. Moreover, she will fly better, probably, to the lure if she is aware that that ordeal is often the precursor of a solid meal. The rather common practice of feeding all the hawks at about the same hour—generally late in the day—has nothing that I ever heard of to recommend it. How can a hawk which habitually dines at six o’clock or later be expected to be keen or to fly well when thrown off at her quarry at three or four o’clock? If a peregrine, when it has been finally decided not to fly her in the field that day, is fed at about eleven o’clock, she will be fit to fly on the morrow at any time after noon. The falconer should note in what order his hawks are fed, so that on the next day, unless any special circumstances prevent it, those which have been fasting the longest should be flown the first.

No hawk, after being fed up, should be disturbed, frightened, or shaken about. If the return journey from the field or exercise-ground is long, and the hawk inclined to bate off the fist, she should be hooded just before or after she has finished her meal; and on returning home she should be put in a quiet place—either on a block where nothing can interfere with her, or on the screen-perch; and if given to bating off, she should remain hooded, or else in a darkened room, till nightfall. No hawk should be allowed ever to finish her meal within sight of another that is still hungry, or to be in a place where she can see a lure or any sort of food without being able to get at it. At no time should a hawk be pegged out in a position where she is exposed to a strong wind, or to a hot sun, except just before and for a while after her bath. Never should food be dragged or pulled away forcibly from a hawk, leaving her hungry on the fist or perch with nothing to eat. The falconer must play the part of a friend, and of a generous friend, not of a niggardly and tyrannical master, who makes use of his superior strength to rob his servant of the good things which she expected to enjoy.

In summer, when the weather is fine and the ground tolerably dry, peregrines, hobbies, and some of the hardiest of the big hawks may be left all night at their blocks on the grass. But the advantages, if any, resulting from such a plan are, I think, more than questionable. It is argued, of course, that wild hawks sleep in the open air, and therefore why not trained ones? But the wild hawk chooses his or her resting-place—almost always a tall tree or rock—far out of reach of the dews and mists which belong to the grass and the lower air. If the wild hawk gets wet, or feels cold at midnight, she has only the elements or herself to blame. If the trained hawk suffers, will she not blame the man who tied her down in a position where she could not escape from these discomforts? A perfectly clean and well-aired hawk-house is, to my mind, as good a place for hawks to sleep in as the finest lawn on the fairest night of the year. What good does a hawk get from bating at the block on to the wet grass from 3 or 4 a.m. till the falconer appears? If wild hawks did this, instead of keeping aloft in the clear air, would they not be likely sometimes to get the croaks?

I have reserved till as late a place as this the question of dieting, the most difficult, if not the most important, part of the falconer’s art. Condition in a trained hawk, as in a trained horse or hound, is the most essential requisite for really great success. Without it the very best hawk will make but a poor show; and with it even a naturally slow hawk can be flown with pleasure and credit. Condition must always depend chiefly upon two things, exercise and dieting. Now, as regards exercise, it is impossible for a falconer to err on the side of excess. Wild hawks in their airy circlings, and in pursuit of their daily subsistence, traverse an almost incredible distance in the course of a year; probably fifty times as many miles as the most active of trained hawks can be expected to travel in the same period. Let the trainer, therefore, make it a simple rule to give his charges as much exercise as he can—not all at racing pace, of course, but in using their wings. He need not be afraid of overdoing the thing, as long as he leaves off when the hawk has made too violent an exertion in an actual flight at quarry. I have seen a hobby, waiting on in a high wind, refuse to come down to the lure, though quite sharp-set, and, for the mere pleasure of flying, remain on the wing for twenty-five minutes. The distance flown through the air in the time—counting only that in which his head was to the wind—amounted to a great many miles; and so far was he from being tired at any time, that he would stoop at and hit the lure, and yet refuse to hold it, and go up again to the soar. Few hawks will do this willingly; they must often be induced by some device of the trainer to keep on the wing; and it is impossible to fly such hawks too much.

With respect to food, the matter is altogether different. It is just as easy to overfeed a hawk as to underfeed her. But what trainer can ever be sure that he has always exactly hit off the golden mean? Gers, peregrines, and all the hawks which resemble the peregrine, desert-hawks, hobbies, eagles, goshawks, and female sparrow-hawks, are fed, as a rule, once a day—peregrines well; eagles, goshawks, and the desert-hawks more sparingly. Merlins of both sexes and male sparrow-hawks twice; but lightly on one at least of the two occasions. Raw beef is generally the staple food of the big hawks; but it should not be tough, and should be often varied by a rather lighter diet of bullock’s heart, rabbit, fowl, or pigeon. Merlins and sparrow-hawks should be fed chiefly on small birds, and in default of these on sheep’s heart, rabbit, young fowls, or exceedingly tender mutton or beef. This sort of diet will also be good for hobbies and kestrels; but it is not necessary to be so nice with them, and they can be regaled with coarser food, as long as it is not tough. But they must also have a freshly-killed small bird occasionally. Goshawks will thrive upon rats, weasels, squirrels, rooks, and, in short, almost any kind of bird or animal, except water-hens, which are indigestible and apt to bring them out of yarak. But a goshawk in good flying order should not be kept for long upon coarse food, but indulged now and then at least with viands of the best quality. Mice are capital food, not only for kestrels and hobbies, but for merlins and sparrow-hawks, and may be given whole to any kind of hawk by way of castings. Eagles are not particular as to diet; but they should have plenty of tirings, and their meat will be none the worse for being a bit tough.

Eagles and all short-winged hawks should have a gorge, that is to say, as much as they choose to eat, about three times in a fortnight, and on the following day should be very sparingly fed. Eagles, indeed, and some female goshawks need not be fed at all, if they are to be flown at wild quarry on the second day after their full meal. But none of the smaller hawks will stand anything approaching to starvation; and to leave a male sparrow-hawk or merlin without food for twenty-four hours would probably do him a permanent injury, or at all events ruin his chance of doing himself any justice in the field for a long time to come. In the case of these, and indeed all the long-winged hawks, when in constant exercise at wild quarry, I am not quite sure that any good is done by giving any gorges at all. I never do so with merlins in the lark season; and yet I have killed with one of them over thirty larks in succession without a miss. Granting that in their wild state all hawks occasionally gorge themselves, it must be remembered that trained hawks are not in a wild state. The analogy is not a just or true one, any more than it would be to argue from the habits of Red Indians to those expedient for a white man in training. However, there can be no great harm, even if there is no great advantage, in giving a gorge to a peregrine once a week. It is a practice consecrated by old tradition and precept: and it is not for us degenerate modern amateurs to lightly discard the maxims of the age of chivalry.

In saying that peregrines and other big hawks are fed once a day, it is not meant that they should never taste a morsel of food except their one solid meal. Small tit-bits will be forthcoming at odd times, as for instance in the early morning, when they are moved from the perch to the block, or taken to bathe, or to be carried. They will pick a little from the tirings at which they are almost every day set to work. There is no need to be stingy with these odds-and-ends; indeed, the old falconers would very often give their falcons quite a small meal when they hooded up for the field, or a little before. One ancient writer declares that a falcon will eat the wing of a fowl, and two hours afterwards be quite fit to fly. Another recommends his readers always to feed eyess peregrines twice a day, but of course moderately. The exact amount of food which it is proper to give to each hawk cannot be specified even very approximately. For amongst the same class of hawks, nay, amongst hawks which actually came from the same nest, will be found individuals with quite different sorts of appetites. One of them will grow too thin upon rations that make her sister, or even her brother, too fat. Nevertheless, taking the average of a number of hawks of the same species, it is possible to arrive at a rough estimate of what is usually required. The allowance always prescribed for a peregrine falcon is one-third of a pound of beef. Tiercels, therefore, will require about a quarter of a pound; and other English hawks must be provided for on about the same scale, i.e. the amount of food, if very solid, should weigh nearly one-seventh of the total weight of the bird fed. The desert-hawks, however, are much smaller feeders. A saker, for instance, looks about as large as a gerfalcon. But it was computed that a trained ger would eat three times as much as a saker. The power of fasting of these hawks is naturally very great; and they should have great gorges, with intervals of very spare feeding. On the other hand, the small hawks eat a great deal more in proportion to their size than the large ones. A whole skylark, of average dimensions, given freshly killed, with all the blood warm in it, is not quite enough for a merlin’s daily ration, but would be about right for most jacks. The ladies, when doing hard work, require about four larks in three days. A starling or blackbird is about the right daily meal for a female hobby, but rather too little for a female sparrow-hawk, and decidedly too much for a “musket” or “robin.” A sparrow without its feathers weighs an ounce, as nearly as may be; and two whole sparrows a day is a very ample allowance for a merlin, even when flying both morning and evening. Probably this would be about the fair quantity to keep a female hobby in good condition. A sparrow and a half would be about sufficient for a jack, a robin, or a musket. An ounce of beef is of course a heavier meal than an ounce of sparrow, but it may be doubted whether it will give a small hawk more strength or courage, though it will sustain him longer.

It is needless to say that the apportionment of food to each individual hawk becomes a more difficult matter in proportion as the hawk is smaller. A mistake of an ounce, one way or the other, is no great matter in the case of a ger or a falcon, but give a jack-merlin an ounce too much or an ounce too little, and you may very soon find out your mistake in a most practical way. Sometimes a jack will eat more—and need more—than his own sisters or any merlin in the establishment. Sometimes, but more rarely, a single merlin will want nearly as much as two jacks. Tiercel peregrines, barbarys, and others, sometimes, but rarely, require almost as much as a falcon. A hawk which has throughout her life never known what it is to be thin can generally be kept in high condition on less food than one which has once been below par. Fortunate is the man who has been able to train his hawk without ever putting her on short commons, and has always been able, by skill or luck, or both combined, to fly her just at the time when she was keen enough and yet not over-hungry. Such hawks have the best chance of turning out well; and among them may probably be numbered many of those whose names are glorious in the annals of the sport.

A hawk’s condition may be tested to a certain limited extent by passing a finger down her breast-bone, and by feeling the broad pectoral muscles on each side of the breast between the forefinger and thumb. Some indications may also be got by gently pinching the muscles of the leg, to ascertain whether they are full and hard. But these are very rough tokens to judge from. One hawk will fly her best when almost as fat as a wild one, and when the sternum is hardly more prominent than it is in a partridge; whereas others, when fed up to this condition, will do no serious work, but go off soaring on their own account, or take perch in a tree or rick, and stare unconcernedly at the lure as if they had no conception that it had any attractions for them. The experienced falconer will form a better judgment as to the condition of his hawk from the manner in which she flies. There is a power and ease of motion about a full-fleshed hawk, a force in her stoop, and a sort of pride about her every movement, which one looks for in vain in a hawk in poor condition. Thin hawks fly in a laboured way against a strong wind, instead of facing it easily and appearing to rejoice in their victory over it, utilising its very opposition to lift them up, and sailing on it like a stiff yacht in a gale. Weak flying may result from overfeeding as well as underfeeding. But in the one case the style appears too heavy; and in the other, too light.