Falcons and Fireworks; ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
november_girl's birthday
Nov. 17th, 2005 08:48 amsmokingbootI'm adding this post to my memories as soon as I've written it; I never want to forget yesterday.
The inimitablenovember_girl had invited us to go hawking for her birthday. We came, saw the new abode she and ephraim have bought together in a very English village in or near all the wild prettiness of Warwickshire, drank much bubbly, and come the morning, launched ourselves at the falconry centre.
Don't even know how to begin to describe the feelings of the day. One was certainly dismay, at seeing many boxes of dead day old cockerel chicks; apparently these, in their thousands, are a by-product of the poultry industry. If it wasn't for the fact that they become the staple diets of falconry inhabitants, the waste would be very disturbing (thinking about it, it still is) After meeting various denizens of the aviaries, we had to put on great leather left hand gloves, and take one of these little corpses for our first encounter of the day; feeding the vultures.
The centre is run by a man called John, with a spaniel at his feet and a mad gleam in his eye. At the centre, they breed birds of prey and also rescue and return them to the wild. He it was who, to the pity of his wife, gave up all hopes of a new car in order to obtain his two griffin vultures, Nip and Tuck. 'They're category A,' he told us happily. We thought it meant most endangered or something. No, go near them and you're the endangered one. Category A signifies most dangerous; a heartening thought as we trooped into their pen and knelt at the far end grasping the chicks in gauntleted hands.
Another thing we learnt is that day old chicks have egg yolk inside them, as was ably demonstrated by the vultures once they grabbed and the splatting began. It was all a bit Sin City. The idea was to show us how powerful their beaks are; but I was just as struck with that deliberate sidling step of theirs as they come up to you, and the speculative way they eye you up and down once the chick's been dispatched; Not good company in which to swoon.
Then we met the birds we were working with. Basil the somethingowl (forget his latin name) who looked as though he had the hangover we all deserved from the night before; we never got to meet him properly, simply because we ran out of time working with all the others; a shame cos he looked cute, but what can you do? We had such fun with Gizmo the funky little barn owl who flew from hand to hand like a dream, Storm the great Harris Hawk, who came when called, Cash the enormous eagle owl with his great red gold eyes, swooping towards you when he felt like it, Moss the snowy owl who would fall off your hands if youu didn't keep them steady, Solo the Saker, who wheeled and soared; To feel their wings touch one's head, the weight on your arm, their eyes meeting yours, their imperious cries, to be so close to a wild thing... I didn't think the day could get better. But it did.
After lunch John took us to a wood on a hill, with Jazz the Harris Hawk. He let her go, and she flew from tree to tree and watched, and we learned how you hunt with a hawk. What you do is watch where she goes and go with her, and when you know she's found something, attempt to flush it out (obivously this is something for which you might want a dog). So we tramped through ferns and bracken and over a badgers' set while she flew ahead, winter's first light on the trees around her.
It would have been beautiful without any result, but as it was, we got to see her swoop and race across the ground on foot after two rabbits - and then later, with raucous cries, catch one, and this is again, where the human gets involved. Harris hawks hunt in packs in the wild, and a rabbit would be quickly dealt with, but an individual Harris hawk's talons are quite tender, and the kill can take longer than necessary, so you step in and quickly kill the rabbit. Then you give it back to her, so that she gets the blood she's earned, and let her take the edge off her hunger, her beak tearing away at the fur and into the skin.
I watched the little red hole appear and widen, her beak dipping in, covered with blood, and I learned something a bit horrible. The rabbit was young and healthy; he might have been able to kick her away, but he was unlucky enough not to be facing just a Harris hawk but a hawk and human combo. Health and strength is not always enough. Sometimes you need luck. And there was something poignant and unfair about it, and it hurt a little, but perhaps that discomfort is indulgent - I do not have to be a hunter; the supermarkets are full of unfairness that I never see. When she had eaten a bit, John took the rabbit off her, squeezed out its bladder and put it away for her to have later, blood spatters on his coat. And we wandered from the sunset over the woods towards moonrise on the hill. She flew from tree to hand with each of us. I felt as though I was leaving the real world. And for all its brutality, it was beautiful and I wanted to come back.
In another world, somewhat later,ephraim presented us with a surprise firework display. The surprise was at the noise a rocket makes when it explodes at ground zero. Plus, the shed, despite best efforts, did not burn down. We oohed and aahed and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; and then came home having discovered that for all its old English charm, there are no chippies in Warwickshire.
My thanks tonovember and ephraim for their hospitality and an incredible experience. Saturday looks to be a total hoot, but yesterday was sublime.
The inimitable
november_girl had invited us to go hawking for her birthday. We came, saw the new abode she and ephraim have bought together in a very English village in or near all the wild prettiness of Warwickshire, drank much bubbly, and come the morning, launched ourselves at the falconry centre.Don't even know how to begin to describe the feelings of the day. One was certainly dismay, at seeing many boxes of dead day old cockerel chicks; apparently these, in their thousands, are a by-product of the poultry industry. If it wasn't for the fact that they become the staple diets of falconry inhabitants, the waste would be very disturbing (thinking about it, it still is) After meeting various denizens of the aviaries, we had to put on great leather left hand gloves, and take one of these little corpses for our first encounter of the day; feeding the vultures.
The centre is run by a man called John, with a spaniel at his feet and a mad gleam in his eye. At the centre, they breed birds of prey and also rescue and return them to the wild. He it was who, to the pity of his wife, gave up all hopes of a new car in order to obtain his two griffin vultures, Nip and Tuck. 'They're category A,' he told us happily. We thought it meant most endangered or something. No, go near them and you're the endangered one. Category A signifies most dangerous; a heartening thought as we trooped into their pen and knelt at the far end grasping the chicks in gauntleted hands.
Another thing we learnt is that day old chicks have egg yolk inside them, as was ably demonstrated by the vultures once they grabbed and the splatting began. It was all a bit Sin City. The idea was to show us how powerful their beaks are; but I was just as struck with that deliberate sidling step of theirs as they come up to you, and the speculative way they eye you up and down once the chick's been dispatched; Not good company in which to swoon.
Then we met the birds we were working with. Basil the somethingowl (forget his latin name) who looked as though he had the hangover we all deserved from the night before; we never got to meet him properly, simply because we ran out of time working with all the others; a shame cos he looked cute, but what can you do? We had such fun with Gizmo the funky little barn owl who flew from hand to hand like a dream, Storm the great Harris Hawk, who came when called, Cash the enormous eagle owl with his great red gold eyes, swooping towards you when he felt like it, Moss the snowy owl who would fall off your hands if youu didn't keep them steady, Solo the Saker, who wheeled and soared; To feel their wings touch one's head, the weight on your arm, their eyes meeting yours, their imperious cries, to be so close to a wild thing... I didn't think the day could get better. But it did.
After lunch John took us to a wood on a hill, with Jazz the Harris Hawk. He let her go, and she flew from tree to tree and watched, and we learned how you hunt with a hawk. What you do is watch where she goes and go with her, and when you know she's found something, attempt to flush it out (obivously this is something for which you might want a dog). So we tramped through ferns and bracken and over a badgers' set while she flew ahead, winter's first light on the trees around her.
It would have been beautiful without any result, but as it was, we got to see her swoop and race across the ground on foot after two rabbits - and then later, with raucous cries, catch one, and this is again, where the human gets involved. Harris hawks hunt in packs in the wild, and a rabbit would be quickly dealt with, but an individual Harris hawk's talons are quite tender, and the kill can take longer than necessary, so you step in and quickly kill the rabbit. Then you give it back to her, so that she gets the blood she's earned, and let her take the edge off her hunger, her beak tearing away at the fur and into the skin.
I watched the little red hole appear and widen, her beak dipping in, covered with blood, and I learned something a bit horrible. The rabbit was young and healthy; he might have been able to kick her away, but he was unlucky enough not to be facing just a Harris hawk but a hawk and human combo. Health and strength is not always enough. Sometimes you need luck. And there was something poignant and unfair about it, and it hurt a little, but perhaps that discomfort is indulgent - I do not have to be a hunter; the supermarkets are full of unfairness that I never see. When she had eaten a bit, John took the rabbit off her, squeezed out its bladder and put it away for her to have later, blood spatters on his coat. And we wandered from the sunset over the woods towards moonrise on the hill. She flew from tree to hand with each of us. I felt as though I was leaving the real world. And for all its brutality, it was beautiful and I wanted to come back.
In another world, somewhat later,
ephraim presented us with a surprise firework display. The surprise was at the noise a rocket makes when it explodes at ground zero. Plus, the shed, despite best efforts, did not burn down. We oohed and aahed and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; and then came home having discovered that for all its old English charm, there are no chippies in Warwickshire.My thanks to
november and ephraim for their hospitality and an incredible experience. Saturday looks to be a total hoot, but yesterday was sublime.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 10:53 pm (UTC)The chippy was shut again? That's a bit worrying as it was shut last week as well. Maybe they couldn't sustain the ridiculously low prices.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 11:43 pm (UTC)As for the chippy *twiddles fingers* well, we never actually found it at all, due possibly to us being a bit crap.
Instead we found ourselves driving down little country roads finding ourselves in a place called Tanworth-in-Arden, which looks awfully posh by lamplight; no-one would dare fry a mars bar or sell polystyrene cups of curry gravy within a twenty mile radius. After an hour of fruitless driving, we surrendered, and bimbled hopelessly off up the M4 like the chipless saddoes we are.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-18 08:56 am (UTC)