Black Doggerel

My mother's been clearing out an enormous cupboard in my sister's old bedroom. I say cupboard; it's bigger than my utility room and the entire family has been using it as a dumping ground since forever. This is what came to light today: some early photos of me with hawks.

There aren't any of the redtail I think of as my real hawk, my Camilla. John and I had custody of those, and his sister threw them all away when she cleared out their mother's flat after her death. These are of my first hawk, a European Buzzard called Morgan that I had for three years before Camilla. Morgan was fun; resilient, even-tempered and lazy, possessed of every bad habit I had to learn to teach a bird not to have, and although she remained resolutely uninterested in hunting anything larger than mice, she was a damn good teacher.

( Here be the pics )

So I was talking to deathwokclan, and I go to Youtube to show her the Spike tuggy video. And while I'm there, I'm distracted by a National Geographic video of an eagle hunting a chevrotain, and then it occurs to me that I could do a Youtube search for "falconry", and I wonder why I never thought of it before. I'm not usually so slow to find new ways to torture myself.

Edited to add:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34SO5LbZx3s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M2OLYG694Q - includes working ferrets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnWeN02DLmU

These killed me. They're English. I might even have met the guy, though I can't tell. Don't click the first two if you have a problem with furry mammal death. This isn't a display at a fair, it's the real thing. That was my life. Third one is a redtail, which is what mine was.

For bloolark:

How old are you? - Thirty-nine; I'll be forty in September.

Tell us your life history in 30 words or less - Born in Indiana, moved here, boarding school is hell, Dungeons and Dragons, falconry, ferrets, love, marriage, drugs, death, rebirth, dogs, LiveJournal, Blogathon.

What do you like about living in the UK? - The National Health Service, the welfare state, the people, the climate, the landscape, the history and the architecture.

How far do you live from London? About 90 miles south of London.

What's your favorite scent? Grapefruit peel, fresh sex, elderflowers, patchouli, wet dog, autumn forest floor, snow, ferrets, fresh coffee.

How do you like your coffee? Black, a quarter-spoon of sugar.

Do you like coffee or tea better? Coffee. Can't abide tea.

For ramona:

I was fascinated with birds generally and birds of prey in particular from very early childhood. In 1985 I found a magazine article about the British School Of Falconry - it was like being struck by lightning. Until I saw the article I'd assumed that falconry was a historical thing that no-one did any more - the minute I learned different I couldn't rest till I was doing it myself. I nagged my parents into paying for one of their beginner's courses for my next birthday, and then I saved up to buy my first hawk, which was a European buzzard I named Morgan. I had her for three years, and although she was a pleasure to be around and I taught her tricks, she never killed anything bigger than a mouse (she seemed to be frightened of rabbits) and I started yearning for a real hunting bird. I started saving again, and when I had enough for a redtail I gave Morgan to another beginner who I met through the British Falconer's Club and bought Camilla.

Camilla was a much pleasanter bird than Morgan, though never as cuddly, and she showed me what it was really all about. I had her for eight years and I never had to buy meat the whole time, though I did have to learn a thousand and one ways to cook rabbit. She had a sense of humour and liked to knock people's hats off in the field.

In 1995 my mother's house got repossessed and everything fell apart. John and I had to move out in a huge hurry, all our animals had to be boarded out as the only place we could find to live on short notice was a one room bedsit. I boarded Camilla with a friend in the New Fporest falconry club and I never got her back. I was told she'd died from eating a poisoned rat that had broken into her aviary. This year I met someone else who'd known me and the person who took Camilla then, and he said that it was a lie and that she'd been stolen. I hope that's the truth. It makes no difference to me one way or another, but it's a far better outcome for her.

Season one, episode five: opening scene is meant to be a bunch of Middle Eastern types being Middle Eastern round a campfire. There are tents, there's sand and there are hawks. The hawk that the camera lingers lovingly on in the opening shot is a bloody European Buzzard.

seriously! this is the equivalent of filming a greyhound racing scene and substituting miniature poodles for the greyhounds, or the Grand National with zebras for horses. It's even more absurd when you think how many professional display hawks in this country (i.e, hawks that would be perfectly tame and unworried enough to be filmed without making drama) are Lanner falcons, which would have been perfectly appropriate for a Middle Eastern hawking scene.

/end nitpick. back to the episode now.