Classical Falconry

Classical Falconry Covers the modern forms of the high flights of classical falconry, the most technically challenging branch of hawking, and it's based on the author's personal experiences with Northumberland Crow Falcons over the past dozen years. Classical Falconry is the first book dedicated solely to flights out of the hood. Based on his experiences managing the Northumberland Crow Falcons, Nick Fox has pulled together the theory and practice of classical falconry in modern times. For the large falcons in the West, crow and rook hawking are the main quarry available for the Height Flight, in which both falcon and prey climb high into the sky in aerial pursuit. The book describes the type of ground needed for classical flights, the potential quarry species, the falcons and horses and their management. It covers the human element of the equation, the Members and Falconers, and the tactics used according to landscape and weather conditions to achieve the best flights. Contributions from authors in other countries highlight the differences of approach needed to cope with conditions found in other parts of the world. Far from being a dry technical manual, this book is spiced with a wealth of personal anecdotes and excerpts from hawking diaries. The illustrations and photographs combine to provide a glimpse of the falcons and people as they undertake this most difficult branch of the falconer's art.

An advanced and more specialized look at the modern forms of the high flights of classical falconry.

In this fully revised edition of his classic guide to falconry for beginners, lifelong falconer Tony Hall presents the most comprehensive information available to newcomers to the sport. Falconry Basics is specifically designed for novices and covers the basics, from different types of birds and their individual characteristics, to acquiring the proper equipment and the care and handling of the birds themselves. Covering all aspects of training, hunting, and maintenance, Falconry Basics addresses every possible scenario a newcom- er may face when training their first raptor, from illness and injury to escaped or overconfident hawks. Hall also provides a wealth of supplementary information for beginners, including notes on anatomy, terminology, and a list of additional resources. Accompanied by diagrams and detailed line illustrations throughout, this book will become a standard manual for future generations of falconers.

Thus begins the tale by Stephen Bodio, a lover of birds and nature, of the incredible connection between man and birds of prey. Falconry can be traced back over four thousand years and, as Bodio says, “it is amazing that the practice did not die out soon afterward when its first adherents starved.” With a new introduction by Helen MacDonald, A Rage For Falcons not only shares the history of falconry, but shows the personal side in a way only Bodio can share. With masterful prose and breathtaking imagery, you not only understand how falconry has lasted, but why. As Bodio so appropriately notes in his introduction: “To understand falconry, you must understand the nature of the relationship between man and bird.” In A Rage For Falcons, Bodio explores this incredible relationship and how it has affected him as a person. Never has such a personal touch been put on a sport that has lasted generations, which many people still do not have a grasp of. That’s what makes Bodio so great. While his words may not convince you to take up the sport, will certainly open your eyes to appreciate a world unlike any other.

This book examines the resources required for using falconry in hunting wild game as well as how falconers must attend to a falcon's needs, how to hunt, and the sport's regulations and responsibilities.

Before best-selling author Helen Macdonald told the story of the goshawk in H Is for Hawk, she told the story of the falcon, in a cultural history of the masterful creature that can “cut the sky in two” with the “perfectly aerodynamic profile of a raindrop,” as she so incisively puts it. In talon-sharp prose she explores the spell the falcon has had over her and, by extension, all of us, whether we’ve seen them “through binoculars, framed on gallery walls, versified by poets, flown as hunting birds, through Manhattan windows, sewn on flags, stamped on badges, or winnowing through the clouds over abandoned arctic radar stations.” Macdonald dives through centuries and careens around the globe to tell the story of the falcon as it has flown in the wild skies of the natural world and those of our imagination. Mixing history, myth, and legend, she explores the long history of the sport of falconry in many human cultures—from Japan to Abu Dhabi to Oxford; she analyzes the falcon’s talismanic power as a symbol in art, politics, and business; and she addresses the ways we have both endangered and protected it. Along the way we discover how falcons were mobilized in secret military projects; their links with espionage, the Third Reich, the Holy Roman Empire, and space programs; and how they have figured in countless stories of heroism and, of course, the erotic. Best of all, Macdonald has given us something fresh: a new introduction that draws on all her experience to even further invigorate her cherished subject. The result is a deeply informed book written with the same astonishing lyrical grace that has captivated readers and had everyone talking about this writer-cum-falconer.