The Falconer S Quarry

Joe Hopkins thinks he knows what Tudor England might be like. But as he soon discovers, he knows both too little and too much.

Skillful hunters beautiful in flight, Prairie Falcons inhabit the rocky cliffs of the American West. These raptors range from southern Canada and northern North Dakota to Baja California, Arizona, New Mexico, western and northern Texas, and southeastern Coahuila, Mexico. This is the first book for a wide audience devoted exclusively to the Prairie Falcon. Stanley Anderson and John Squires cover all aspects of the falcon's life history from mating and rearing young to hunting behaviors and the yearly migration cycle. They provide complete descriptive characteristics for identifying Prairie Falcons and also compare them to other raptors, especially the closely related Peregrine Falcon. In addition, the authors recount the long association of falcons with people, which may extend back as far as 2000 BC. They describe the practice of falconry from the Middle Ages until today. And they assess the threats to Prairie Falcons posed by human activities, from pesticide use and destruction of habitat to disruption of the breeding cycle by careless birdwatchers.

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.

This lavishly illustrated encyclopedia contains some 1,500 terms and idioms, related to or connected with falconry, with explanations, derivations and notes. It is illustrated with photographs, figures, and reproductions of antiquarian prints and is believed to be the first attempt to catalog and review the complete language of falconry as used between the later Middle Ages and the present day. The Encyclopedia of Falconry will be a valuable addition to all reference collections by uniquely covering a subject with a long and distinguished history.

Have you ever wondered how a sheepdog, police horse, leopard or octopus is trained? Carrots and Sticks brings behavioural science to life, explaining animal training techniques in the language of learning theory. The first sections on instinct and intelligence, rewards and punishers are richly infused with examples from current training practice, and establish the principles that are explored later in the unique case studies. Drawing on interviews with leading animal trainers, Carrots and Sticks offers 50 case studies that explore the step-by-step training of a wide variety of companion, working and exotic animals. It reviews the preparation of animals prior to training and common pitfalls encountered. The book's accessible style will challenge your preconceptions and simplify your approach to all animal-training challenges. This exciting text will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest, amateur or professional, in the general basics of animal training, as well as to students of psychology, veterinary medicine, agriculture and animal science.