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The literal definition of falconry is the art of hunting quarry with a trained bird of prey, but its so much more than that. Ask any falconer and you quickly learn it’s a way of life, a deep connection to nature, a window into the ancient relationship between predator and prey. Falconry itself is an ancient practice, the current estimate is that the art is 4000 years old placing it in the bronze age, for context, around the same time, we had only just discovered that our own bodies contain organs like the heart, triangles where being studied for the construction of the pyramids, and the number 0 didn’t even exist. Nobody knows the exact origin of falconry, falcons where gifted to Chinese princes around 2200 BC. A stone carving depicting a falconer was discovered in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, and is dated to originate from 1700 BC. Earliest evidence of falconry crossing over to Europe comes in the form of a floor mosaic in Greece dated 500 AD.
And while falconry now encompasses a range of species including falcons, hawks, buzzards, and even some owls, on of the most ancient practices is eagle falconry. Still done today, the Mongolians have been practising eagle falconry for thousands of years. The use their landscape to gain height on horseback before slipping their eagles to catch food for the tribes, here in the UK its widely known that the best place for eagle falconry is up in Scotland where the landscape allows falconers to somewhat mimic the Mongolians. But here in central England, its called lowland falconry, and its a completely different game all together.
Lowland eagle falconry is raw, its real, there’s no cheap tricks, its just a team of guys, a couple eagles, and the natural world. A deep connection into nature. The hare are cunning, smart, they know how to survive. If you’ve ever seen videos of a golden eagle binding to and successfully dispatching a hare, what you didn’t see was the 10 previous videos of the hare using its agility and speed to outmanoeuvre the eagle and get away. We didn’t go out expecting a huge bag of trophies, just a day of excellent sport. I always think that many people not involved in falconry look at falconers as blood thirsty animal murderers, but its not the truth. In reality, we all held just as much admiration for the prey as we did the eagles, we weren’t there to slaughter the landscapes wildlife. Falconry just allows you to momentarily insert yourself into the millions of years long relationship between predator and prey. If you ever meet a falconer who just wants to boast about how many kills they have had, in my opinion, they have missed the point themselves.
So how does lowland eagle falconry work? The hooded eagle is held on the glove and the falconer stands on the highest ground, typically along some kind of ridge. The beaters, the rest of the guys, then walk along the bottom of the ridge, either from another side of roughage or hedge line. This drives the hare out of hiding and so they bolt out in the opposite direction of the beaters, towards the falconer and eagle. Once a hare has revealed itself, the signal is given, the falconer removes the eagles hood while holding the eagle in the direction of the hare or wind, providing it will be beneficial for the chase. The eagle then leaves the glove in pursuit of the hare, this is called a slip. And this doesn’t always go to plan, as you can probably tell from some of the audio, it was a very windy day and this had a huge effect on the eagles ability to lock onto the hare quick enough.