For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of entering the ornithological lists as a full-fledged falconer. This is probably because I grew up in a bad neighborhood, didn't have my growth spurt until I was 14, and honestly believed that a menacing bird of prey cocked on my right arm might come in handy back in North Philly. As an adult, I've felt a different sort of biological kinship with falcons, because the beasts of the air, like satirists, spend their lives stalking helpless victims they can eviscerate and devour without risking any harm to themselves.
My finely wrought dreams of engaging in avian-assisted predation did not come to fruition until I discovered the British School of Falconry, in Manchester Village, Vermont. Initially daunted by the vaguely snooty title, I was relieved to discover that the school is run not by a prissy, affected Brit, but by a true salt-of-the-earth Englishman named Rob Waite. He grew up in a wooded district of Buckinghamshire, about 75 miles from London, and has been fascinated by birds since childhood. But he stresses one key point.
"Falconry is a lifestyle," he states firmly. "It's not a little pastime."
This explains why fewer than 1 percent of the visitors to the school ever take up falconry as a serious activity, in that it's a commitment of time, money, and energy that requires spending a minimum of 2 years in training before certification as a falconer. The day I visited, most of the aspiring falconers looked like tourists out on an afternoon lark, not serious sportsmen. Falconry was something "neat" they could do. They did not have falconry in their blood.
I did. A seasoned carnivore who makes a living being cruel, I honestly thought I might pick up a few tips on cold-blooded remorselessness from hanging around falcons for a few hours. That's why I wanted to rip through the 45-minute introduction as quickly as possible and get out into the wild. But Waite stressed patience.
For starters, he noted that the school, as is true of many individual falconers, uses Harris's hawks rather than peregrine falcons, because Harris's hawks, which hail from the American Southwest, have a far more "laid-back" temperament.
These hawks (weighing in at roughly 2 pounds) also eat remarkably little on a daily basis, so little that it isn't even worth taking them out of their cages if they tip the scales at more than half an ounce over their fighting weight. Like most creatures on this planet, as soon as their bellies are full, hawks have a tendency to phone it in.
"Birds don't want to work," Waite explains. "For them, hunting is simply a means to an end. They have to be hungry when you take them out."
The first thing a neophyte falconer realizes when he positions a bird of prey on his gloved fist is that the bird doesn't even notice the student. Amazingly, you can position a hawk just inches from your face and he will barely make eye contact, because he's not going to eat you, and what he can't eat, he's not interested in. All the while, his head is in constant motion, ceaselessly darting back and forth, rotating backward, always on the lookout for a snack.
"They're not like dogs," Waite says. "They don't want to hang out with you. The relationship ends when we are no longer useful to them."
This is why the birds have bells and electronic sensors attached to their legs. No matter how long a hawk has been working with a falconer, a fully sated bird will simply vanish into the woods once it's had enough to eat. When the bird can no longer be lured back home by the tasty treats the falconer carries in his pouch, the human must physically go out and track the animal by homing in on the jangling bells or, when necessary, the tracking device.
"No falconer looks at his bird as a pet," Waite notes. "There is no emotional bond between the bird and the falconer."
Initially, I was disappointed to learn that I could never wade into a crowded bar, be set upon by lowlife thugs, and then command my airborne compadre to rip their eyes out of their sockets, the way a pet jaguar would. But then I began to put things into context. The raptor was totally self-absorbed: It was all about him. In this sense, he wasn't much different from my family.
Two truly memorable things happened while I was out on my hawk walk with Mr. Waite. The first occurred when my hawk became agitated and tried to tear itself loose from my grasp so it could swoop down on what was to me an invisible target 100 yards away.
Because of onerous Department of Fish and Wildlife strictures, a hawk cannot be released for a hunt by a fledgling falconer; it can be cut loose only by an official falconer. Otherwise, Vermont would be swarming with amateur falconers, and who knows where that would lead? So, once the bird had worked itself into a dither, Waite released it from its moorings and let it rocket off into the distance, where it pounced on what appeared to be a remarkably tasty mole. I pictured a villain's eyeball and was content.
The second joyous moment occurred when I summoned the hawk from its perch on a distant tree and it kamikazed toward my hand. This is when your childhood dreams of falconry finally come true, when you command your bird to do something stylish and dramatic and it does it in a classy, professional fashion. In truth, a man never feels more like a man than at this moment.
As we wrapped up our glorious sojourn into the forest deep, Waite told me of a man he knew who had made three separate treks to Outer Mongolia just to witness hawking in the arid, frozen wasteland. Not until the third trip did his bird -- an eagle more than five times the size of a Harris's hawk -- catch anything. But those experiences, he assured me, were unforgettable.
So now I have upped the ante. I am fashioning romantic dreams of a trip to the harsh Mongolian steppe, where I will retrace the footsteps of Genghis Khan, listening to the lamentations of women as I dominate the barren landscape with my fearsome eagle. A man has to have a hobby, and falconry sure beats woodcutting. Well, unless you're Garrison Keillor.