“All of the accipiters can be difficult to train, but the goshawk is the worst, because it’s so big and strong and fierce. If they weaken if they fall ill or become injured, they die. They come together as pairs to breed, but for most of the year they lead solitary lives. (Only a handful of species-such as the Harris’s Hawk-has any kind of social structure beyond the pair.) Most raptors are loners. Hawks are not social animals like dogs or horses-or people. What I learned from Frederick and other authors was how different the training of a raptor is from any other kind of animal training. I’ve always felt a strong connection with falconers in centuries past. I ended my journey at the cathedral in Palermo, Sicily, leaving a pair of my Peregrine Falcon’s bells at the foot of Frederick’s sarcophagus-alongside the fresh flowers that people still leave there all these centuries later. Many years later, I traveled across Italy, visiting important Frederick II sites-where he was born, where he lived at various times, where he died-and wrote about the experience in my book Falcon Fever. It felt almost like Frederick was speaking to me from across the centuries, guiding me in my earliest falconry endeavors. As a 12-year-old, the first book I ever read about falconry was a translation of De Arte Venandi cum Avibus ( On the Art of Hunting with Birds), by 13th-century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Macdonald is fascinated by falconry’s ancient roots, and she covers its history and lore excellently in parts of H is for Hawk and an earlier book, Falcon. What is interesting is her choice of bird: a goshawk-one of the wildest, most difficult to train of raptors.
She knew that the kind of concentration required to train a hawk would be the best possible distraction for her. She had been working with raptors since childhood and was already an accomplished falconer. This is not as strange as it might sound to a non-falconer. What makes H is for Hawk special is how Helen Macdonald chose to deal with the grief she felt after her father’s death-by dropping out of human society and spending months alone, training and hunting with a hawk. Macdonald was devastated by the sudden loss of her father, Alisdair Macdonald, with whom she had shared a love of nature as a child.
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