Sharing Information

It's been almost exactly a year since my last blog post. Blame it on lock-down laziness? I wasn't doing much birding during the time of Covid and I also was in the hospital and recovering from open heart surgery (I'm fine now.) BUT, I was taking a number of online classes about birds (and cooking, but not cooking birds--I'm vegetarian).

 "Once you discover something it's important to share that information." This advice comes from the scientists at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, ID. I discovered the Center while taking a kid's course through Varsity Tutors. Most of their classes are free or available for a very low cost. And while they say that this class was for children, it was very enlightening for adults also, so take a class with a kid or by yourself. Varsity Tutors also offers classes on dinosaurs, ancestors of today's birds, and many other topics.

During the one hour class, Saving Raptors, Curtis Evans shared information and introduced us to some of the birds of prey that are currently living at the Center. In addition to rehabilitation, the Center raises endangered birds to be released back into the wild. Many birds at the Center are used in educational situations if they can't be released. The Center also works around the world to help prevent habitat loss and extinction.

Burrowing owls (Photo by
The Peregrine Fund)

One thing I've learned as a birder is that we are always learning new things about birds! Owls borrow a nest someone else, like a hawk or eagle, has made. Or smaller owls go into cavities in trees or barns. Vultures lay eggs on a scrape on a cliff or in a cavity. Hawks and eagles make nests. Falcons may nest on the edge of buildings. (See Tower Girl at the University of Texas at Austin) Eagles build very large nests adding to the building every year. Nests are not deep but the birds continue adding a clean layer to the nest.

Milky eagle owl
(Photo by the Peregrine Fund)

One of the most amazing raptors shown was the Milky Eagle Owl, Africa’s largest owl, commonly known as the Giant Eagle Owl, its correct name is the Verreaux's eagle-owl. The one at the World Center is an owl that hatched at the Atlanta Zoo, where one can be seen also. Hand raised, the owlet then went to Idaho where it remains. So now I have to plan a visit!

Hopefully I can get back on track now that there is some return to normalcy. Wearing a mask, I am going to lectures, getting out to bird, and travelling some. And, of course, always learning.

H is for Hawk

I don't generally read memoirs but sometimes it is good to get out of your comfort zone and read something different. For several months I kept seeing notices about H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. It had a lot of characteristics that don't make it "my kind of reading." I'm not a big reader of "literary" books--too many books, too little time. It's described as a "misery memoir" and I don't need to read about other people's miserable lives. It's won a lot of awards and that usually means it's a "literary" book (see previous comment). It's British and they have a funny way of spelling words. Also every time I looked at the jacket, I was sure this was a book for kids and was disappointed when I realized (once again) it was not. I know. I'm shallow but there are only so many hours in the day and I spend as many of them birding as I do reading.

On the other hand, the book is about hawks and other birds. So I jumped in--and I'm glad I did.

Struggling to deal with her father's sudden death, Helen returns to a passion of her youth--falconry and hawking. Specifically the book explores her work with a goshawk she names Mabel. Goshawks are described as "birdwatcher's dark grail," but also as the ruffians of the bird world. Goshawks are a group of more than two dozen birds of prey although the Norther Goshawk is the only one found in Europe and North America. (View a short clip from the Smithsonian Channel of a goshawk in Korea striking for the kill.) Macdonald's lyrical descriptions of the goshawk brings the bird to life.

In addition to being a memoir of the months following the loss of her father when she trained Mabel as her way of grieving, H is for Hawk is a history of falconry and a nature book. Macdonald mentions early on that as a child she "cleaved to falconry's disconcertingly complex vocabulary." There are so many great words that are high scoring ones for Scrabble! Knowing the correct words was extremely important in the old world of birding (A spy was terrified that he'd be found out because he had trouble remembering the idiosyncratic words, while the terminology also helped maintain falconry as a sport for the upper crust in Europe.) The history of falconry, as told by Macdonald, is fascinating. They were used in the Crusades and were political pawns in wars. Saladin refused to return the "white gyrfalcon owned by King Philip I of Spain" when it got loose during the Siege of Acre. But falconry and hawking goes back even farther to 2,000 BC China and reading H is for Hawk I learned things I never knew I'd like to know.

Falconry is also the story of survival for the goshawk in Britain. Labeled as "vermin" rather than hunting companions, they were persecuted to extinction in England by the late 19th century. Macdonald mentions that she has a photograph of the "stuffed remains of one of the last birds to be shot." By the 1960s and 1970s falconers started to reintroduce the goshawk, importing them from the Continent. Part of the reintroduction included setting one free for every one you used for hunting. These birds survived and found each other so that today there are over 450 pairs in Britain. The birds flown today are identical to those of 5,000 years ago.

Mixed in with the contemporary story is Macdonald's obsession with T.H. White, best known for writing  The Sword in the Stone. Also a falconer, White wrote a memoir about his training, published as The Goshawk (which Macdonald read as a young girl!) and Macdonald frequently contrasts her training of Mabel with White's training of his hawk, Gos. She postulates about White's lonely and brutal childhood and its impact on his training techniques with his hawk. Who knew that the author of the best books on Arthurian legend had such a secret and tragic life! (Side note: Macdonald came to the University of Texas at Austin to research White, as his papers are held at the Harry Ransom Center.)

Goshawk killing a heron (Creative Commons)

And finally there is the specific story of  training Mabel. Following Macdonald through months spent working with Mabel, the reader also learns about many other birds in Britain, the birds the pair see during their walks and flights. While I cringed at descriptions of Mabel's kills, discovering how the hawk hunts and how falconers teach them to hunt and return was amazing. (And frankly, as a vegetarian I had a hard time reading about Macdonald's feeding chicks and other meat to Mabel. Yes, I know animals don't make the choice to change their menus but the descriptions are fairly bloody.)  Macdonald mentions that for her, falconry is"about revelling in the flight of the hawk, never in the death it brought." But like a proud parent at a sporting event, she admits to being pleased when Mabel was successful.

Anyone interesting in raptors will race through this book!