The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

Only when the falconer is seen to have secured the victorious hawk, and attached the leash to her jesses, is it permitted to the field to go up. When time is precious, and there are a lot of hawks to be flown, the line of march may proceed, leaving the work of taking up the successful hawk to him who flew her; and when the next quarry is put up, the next hawk in order may be thrown off by the man who carries her. Otherwise it is best to get one flight altogether done with before another is started. When the quarry has beaten off his pursuers and got away, a lure or lures must be put in requisition; and one man, if he can be spared, should remain, with lure in hand, near the place where the hawk, if out of sight, was last seen. The others will follow on, more or less quickly, in the direction she seemed to take. All trained hawks have a certain inclination to return after an unsuccessful chase towards the place from which they started in pursuit; and the man to whom the easy duty of standing still is allotted generally has as good a chance of taking up such a hawk as any one of those who have walked or ridden forward.

When the quarry puts in, and the place is known or shrewdly guessed at, generally all the field may participate more or less directly in the work of getting him out. In magpie- and blackbird-hawking, this routing out of the quarry is one of the most animated parts of the day’s proceedings. But everything must be done under the control and direction of the head falconer. An amateur may do more harm than good, nay, may spoil the whole job and disgust the hawk, by blundering on and driving out the half-vanquished fugitive in a wrong direction, or at an ill-chosen moment. The falconer himself learns by long experience many of the little ways of birds that have put in—on which side of a fence they will most likely be found; whether inside a hedge or in the long grass or weeds outside it; which way his head is likely to be turned; and whether he may be expected to jump up readily at a man’s first appearance, or to sit still and allow himself to be taken up in the hand or kicked up with the foot. After a hard flight, in which he was getting much the worst of it, the latter is a likely event; whereas if the hawk was making a poor show, and did not press him hard, he will be more ready to start again with fresh hopes of escape.

Some judgment is sometimes required to decide whether in any particular case it is advisable to drive out quarry which has put in, or to pick him up with the hand, if he will allow this, or to leave him alone altogether. This last alternative is not so unlikely to be preferable as a beginner might imagine. Suppose, for instance, that a very good rook, after a hard flight with a young falcon, has managed to get to a small tree which stands by itself, at a distance of a quarter of a mile or less from a wood or big plantation. The hawk waits on, but rather wide. By sending a boy up into the tree, you think you may most likely get the rook out. Will you do so, or leave him alone, and take down the falcon to the lure? If you rout the rook out, it is about ten to one that he will get safe to the big covert. The hawk, if at all wide when he makes his attempt, will hardly have time in so short a distance to make even one stoop, and far less a fatal one. You will have disappointed her, and perhaps disgusted her greatly with the job of flying at rooks, never the most attractive of quarry. Many a good falconer will prefer to call down the hawk, and, leaving the rook to congratulate himself on his escape, reserve her for a fresh start at a quarry which she will have a fairer chance of catching. In lark-hawking, unless the country is extremely open, cases of this kind often present themselves.

On the other hand, if there is a really good prospect of a successful flight when the fugitive is routed out, it is, of course, very encouraging to the hawk to put him up. Every effort should be made to do this when the hawk is waiting on in a good position, so that, having killed, she may be pleased with the whole performance, including the men’s share in it, and may perhaps imagine that the reason the quarry was got out so conveniently for her was because she waited on well. Hawks, whether waiting on in the air or at perch in a good place, soon get to know very well what the men are about when hunting up a bird that has put in. In the case of merlins, which naturally stand by on the ground while a lark is being searched for, it is almost always better to take them up on the fist as soon as it is determined to pick up or try to capture the quarry. Otherwise the lark, having his wits about him, may take advantage of a moment when the hawk is looking the wrong way, and slip off unseen by her. Moreover, even if she sees him go, she will not start from the ground with so good a chance as from the elevation, small though it is, of your fist. As for sparrow-hawks and goshawks, they may, when a quarry puts in, either be called to the hand or allowed to wait close by at the standpoint which they themselves chose. Many of them prefer the latter plan whenever there is a tree handy, as from it they get a better view and more impetus for their stoop. Lanners, when flown at partridges in an enclosed country, may also be encouraged to go to perch in this way.

There are some occasions when it is quite permissible to capture with the hand a bird which has put in. Suppose that you are carrying a first-rate merlin which is short of work and for which you are particularly anxious to find hard flights and plenty of them. Now, when a lark gets up which is either so young or so deep in the moult that he cannot live long in the air before such a merlin, you are in presence of that very eventuality which you most wished to avoid. There is the prospect of a quick and easy kill, which is about the least likely thing in the world to encourage a hawk to a severe flight afterwards. The best that you can hope for is that the lark, seeing his inferiority, as he is sure to do,—for all wild birds are very good judges of such a matter,—will flop down in front of the hawk—or just behind her, if the first stoop has been avoided—in some place where there is just enough covert for the hawk to be unable to espy and jump upon him. Then, when you come up, the lark, which knows as well as you do what fate awaits him if he gets up again, will be very likely indeed to let you seize him in your hand. Will you, then, let that bad lark go before that good merlin? Not if you have any wish to keep up or improve the excellence of the latter. If you have in the background an inferior hawk to enter, or to encourage after an unsuccessful flight, you may start her at the captured lark, taking great care that she does not know that he has ever been captured. Or you may consign him to a safe place where he will not be damaged, and save him for a time when a bagged lark may be of invaluable service to you as a live lure for a lost hawk. Or what you will probably like best will be to let him go when no merlin is by. Similar cases will occur with other quarry and other hawks; but they are pretty frequent in the case of larks, which at moulting-time differ more than any other birds in their pluck and powers of flying.

When a hawk is new to the work of taking wild quarry she should be allowed to kill it and to break in and eat at least some part of it. But when she is au fait at the business the humane man will often be glad if he can save the victim’s life, and this he will not unfrequently be able to do. Unless the quarry has been struck on the head or has a wing broken, no real damage is at all likely to have been done except in cases where the particular hawk has a specially hard stoop of her own, and is fond of cutting down her quarry instead of binding to it. For herons, gulls, rooks, and larks, after they have been taken, it is often pretty easy for the falconer, if he is up in reasonable time, to substitute the pelt of another bird which has been killed before. As I write this page I hear the singing of a lark in a cage before me which was captured by Jubilee after a long ringing flight, and saved from him while he was recovering his wind.

When it is found necessary to get bagged larks for entering a hobby—I have sometimes used one for entering merlins—they may be obtained in this way. Stick two wattled hurdles into the ground three inches apart and side by side in the middle of a very big field where there are larks. Stuff up the space between the two hurdles with loose straw, all except about a foot at each end. Then take out a merlin and beat the field, driving towards the hurdles. When a lark gets up, if the hawk presses him hard, he will go to the shelter which is so inviting. Then taking down your merlin, and giving her a tiring to amuse her, go and pick out the lark from the straw near one end of the hurdles.

I am aware that some writers—and those of the highest authority—have recommended the use of bagged larks after ringing flights when the quarry has put in and cannot quickly be got out; and that the plan is advocated especially in the case of merlins flown at larks. I venture to think, however, that it is a plan which must be resorted to with very great discretion, and only in extreme cases. The idea, of course, is that the bagged bird, let loose at the place where the wild one was seen to put in, is mistaken for the latter by the hawk, which consequently supposes when she has killed that her victim is the one at which she first started. But does the hawk ever make this mistake? A lark, for instance, which has flown a ringing flight is necessarily a good one, whereas the bagged one—unless by a rare accident you have picked one up just before—is necessarily a poor one and generally a bad one; especially if he has been dragged about in a bag or box for an hour or more. Will the merlin believe that this third- or fourth-rate performer is the same bird which a few minutes ago took her up after him into the clouds? Would you yourself, if you had chased a pickpocket or a welsher for half a mile, mistake his identity five minutes afterwards? And the difference between a good and a bad lark is much greater than the difference between a good and a bad pickpocket!

There are several other objections to letting bagged quarry go as personating the real. For instance, a bad lark is generally taken in the air, and taken easily; and with a lark so taken merlins almost always fly a good way before coming down with them to the ground. There is then the risk of not being able to find them; and at anyrate the hawk has learnt how easy it is to carry her quarry,—a species of knowledge which it is a main object of the falconer not to let her acquire. Of course a light creance may be attached to the bagged bird, and the carrying prevented, but this aggravates the dissimilarity between the sham quarry and the one which was put in. On the whole, considering the difficulties of carrying bagged quarry about, and producing them at the right moment in the right place, I doubt if, in the moulting season at all events, it is wise to attempt the stratagem at all. A hawk which is fast enough and clever enough to make a ringing quarry put in is generally able, in a good country, to take him when he has done so; and, except in a good country, ringing flights should not be attempted. When the moult is over, if any merlins continue to persevere at larks it is possible that the device might be adopted with advantage. The bagged lark would then be given, not with any idea that it will be seriously mistaken for the real quarry, but as a bonne bouche simply, to show the hawk that her prolonged exertions in bringing the quarry down have not been unprofitable to her. At this period the very best hawks, even when flown in casts, will put in ringing quarry in places where they cannot be found, and, if repeatedly so disappointed, will give up that sort of flight; whereas if, when they have beaten the lark in the air, and thus played their fair share in the game, the man can occasionally make a show of playing his part by producing a live quarry in the spot where the real quarry ought to be found, the hawks may accept the situation, though without being really deceived, and persevere. Unfortunately, in these cases how seldom it is that anyone can arrive at the spot in time to thus gratify the hawks! They will, after their intended victim has put in, take their stand close to the place, peeping and prying about, and perhaps trying to “walk it up”; and may there remain for a few minutes. Five minutes is as much as you can at all reasonably expect. How is the man, half a mile behind where the hawks came down, to find and get to them in five minutes? If he catches sight of them at all, it will often be by mere good luck. More often than not his first intimation as to where the flight ended is to be gained by noticing from which direction the hawk came to her lure. For as soon as the hawk engaged in a flight goes out of sight, either in the sky or over a ridge, or by reason merely of the distance to which she has gone, the lure should be produced, and kept in evidence as long as the search is continued.

In finding a hawk after a long flight it is useful to bear in mind a few hints which experience has taught. Of course in the case of the bigger hawks the bell is an invaluable guide. The hawker’s ear should be always ready to catch the faintest sound of this well-known tell-tale. But merlins seldom or never wear bells in the field. It will be well, therefore, to give some brief directions as to finding these little hawks. These will be useful also in searching for others when not found by the bell. The person who was nearest to the hawk when she went out of sight will get on as fast as he can to the place over which he last saw her in the air, and may with advantage give notice to others following behind by holding up a hand or making any other signal that has been agreed upon. He will then, if there is a marker within hail, shout or signal a demand for information. If none is forthcoming, he will note with his eye the coverts or places of refuge on ahead of him, and consider which of them was most probably the destination of the quarry. The most likely is certainly the one which lies in a straight line with the course which the two birds were taking; and the next most likely is the nearest in an oblique direction on the down-wind side. If the place which seems most likely should be a plantation, copse, or spinny, let him then, by tracing an imaginary straight line over the intervening ground, decide which is the nearest part of this covert—irrespective of wind—to the spot whereon he stands. In this spot, and no other, the quarry will probably have put in. So constant is this choice by a lark of the very nearest bush in any thicket, that, after searching it thoroughly without success, I should be inclined to leave that plantation altogether and try some other place of shelter. If the hawk has killed, she will be either in the covert or somewhere not far off, where she may have taken her victim to devour him in the open, free from the danger of unwelcome intruders, who in any thick place might come up unawares. Such a spot will generally be tolerably conspicuous. A mound of earth, a heap of stones, a ridge of raised turf or ant-hill is often chosen. When the ground is wet, merlins and hobbies will sometimes carry their quarry a long way merely in the hope of finding a dry place whereon to deplume and devour it. I have known a merlin carry nearly half a mile on a very hot day in order to get under the shade of a distant tree.