Lost Hawks
After a day of unsuccessful flights the falconer returning sadly with
his discouraged hawks may derive some consolation from the thought
that he has at least brought them all safe back. On the other hand,
the triumphs of the most successful afternoon are a good deal marred
when one of the best performers has been left out, and the quarry-book
has to be noted up, opposite her name, with the unpleasant word
"lost." Foremost amongst the dangers and difficulties which beset
the falconer, more plentifully than any other sportsman, is the risk
which constantly hangs over him of losing the faithful ally upon whose
service he depends for carrying on his sport. Every time that he
puts a hawk upon the wing he has to face this contingency, which is
more or less probable according to the nature of the flight which is
attempted. No questions are more often addressed by the uninitiated to
a falconer than these: "How do you get your hawks back?" and "Do they
always come to you?" If he is rash enough to answer the last query in
the affirmative he may be utterly confounded by having to confess that
the very next time he flew his hawk she did not come back! Of course,
in exercising an obedient hawk when she is sharp-set the risk run is
infinitesimally small. But it would be wrong even then to say that it
does not exist. And unfortunately the harder the flight undertaken, and
the better the hawk, the greater is the danger which her owner has to
face.
It is unnecessary to enumerate the many causes which may lead to
the loss of a hawk. They have been mentioned incidentally in many
of the foregoing pages. But it is well to remember that a very
large percentage of the losses which annually occur is due to mere
carelessness on the part of the falconer. As long as you make
no mistake, and give your hawks a fair chance, the danger of an
out-and-out loss is reduced to very moderate dimensions. The worst
cases, as well as the commonest, are those in which the man is blamable
for some imprudence, and not the hawk for any vice or fault. A much
greater number of hawks annually get loose with the leash still
attached to their jesses than anyone would be likely to suppose.
Whenever such a mishap occurs a search should instantly be made for the
fugitive, for every minute which elapses between the time of her loss
and her recovery makes it more probable that she will not again be seen
alive. The long tail of the leash becomes a sort of death-trap affixed
to the hawk herself. As often as she takes perch in a tree, or flies
over a telegraph-wire, or near to anything around which the hanging
strap can coil itself, there is the chance of its getting entangled, in
which case the hawk, hanging head downwards will, after many struggles,
perish ignominiously, perhaps before the eyes of her helpless owner.
Even if the leash is not attached when the hawk gets away, or luckily
drops out of the swivel, there is no little danger that the jesses,
joined together at their ends by the swivel, will get hitched up, and
a similar disaster result. All accidents which occur in this way are
due to sheer carelessness. No hawk should ever be put upon the wing at
all unless her swivel has first been detached. Even the jesses, if they
have big slits in their ends, should be straightened out when they have
been freed from the swivel, so that there is no chance of their getting
hooked up on a nail or strong thorn.
On the first intelligence that a trained hawk has got loose, the
falconer should start in pursuit, provided with a dead lure in any
case, and, if the hawk was not sharp-set at the time, with a live
lure also. The more searchers that can be sent out, the better;
and these should make inquiries of every person they meet. Any of
them who are not competent to take up a hawk themselves may carry a
whistle, or pistol, or any signal agreed upon, by which they may call
up the falconer if they get tidings or a view of the truant. In the
latter case they must take care not to alarm the hawk or give her any
inducement to move about, for each time she moves she runs a fresh
risk of getting entangled and brought to grief. The search for a hawk
which has a leash or swivel attached is not altogether the same as
the search for one that has only her bells and jesses. For the fear
is now not that the runaway, having tasted the sweets of liberty,
will little by little acquire or resume the habits of a wild hawk,
but that, being still as ready as ever to come to the lure or the
fist, she will involuntarily commit suicide by hanging herself head
downwards before you have time to find her and interfere. Thus the
searchers will go about their work with all the speed consistent with
thoroughness, visiting first the places where there is most danger of a
fatal disaster, such as wire fencing, telegraph lines, and such bushy
or thorny trees as the lost hawk has ever been known to frequent. In an
open country loose hawks with their leashes on will sometimes escape
with their lives for days together, and even kill quarry, and keep
themselves in high condition. These, however, are the exceptions; and
in a wooded country such a fortunate issue to the adventure would be
unlikely.
When the loss of a hawk has occurred in consequence of her having
killed out of sight, and gorged herself before she could be discovered,
the chances are that she will remain for the night in the neighbourhood
of the place where she flew the quarry upon which she dined. A visit
will be paid, therefore, next morning at daybreak to this part of the
country; and the falconer must not assume that if he fails to find
quickly the object of his search she is to be looked for somewhere
else. For it is unlikely, wherever she is, that she will pay any
attention to him or his lure until she has cast. This she may not do,
especially if it was late in the previous day when she was lost, until
some hours after a spring or summer sunrise. Consequently, even if
the searcher gets away from this most likely spot, and explores the
plantations for considerable distances round about, he should return
to it from time to time, on the chance that she has been there all the
while, waiting till her appetite came before making her presence known.
As the day grows older, the radius within which the search is continued
may be indefinitely enlarged. Every labourer going to his work, every
farmer going his rounds, every shepherd walking towards his fold,
should be interrogated when met, and asked, if they see anything of the
lost hawk, to report it in some way. The neighbouring keepers may be
warned, although probably they will long before this have been informed
that trained hawks are in the neighbourhood. A man will hardly fly his
hawks in a part of the world where he does not know that the keepers
are to be relied upon.
When the hawk has been lost through raking away or checking at
chance quarry, the work of finding her necessitates often very great
exertions and fatigue. There is nothing particularly unusual in the
fact of a passage peregrine wandering off in an afternoon seven or
eight miles from the place where she was lost sight of. To explore at
all thoroughly an area eight miles long and ten broad at the far end
means, of course, a great many miles travelling, even if the country
is exceptionally open and clear of trees. Nevertheless, the dull and
dreary journey must be undertaken if there is a real desire to recover
the wanderer. The best hawk-finder is he who travels the farthest and
sees the greatest number of possible assistants in his search. If you
make an excuse for shirking a visit to a particular copse or valley,
it is as likely as not that you will hear afterwards, to your chagrin,
that the missing hawk was seen there, and might easily have been
caught. If you will not walk a quarter of a mile out of the way to hail
a passer-by who is going in what you think an unlikely direction, that
will perhaps be the very man who, ten minutes afterwards, comes across
the object of your pursuit.
There is not much to guide a man in choosing what direction he should
prefer for going about his search. But, other influences being equal,
the truant is more likely to have gone down-wind than up. Weak hawks
especially, when they have no particular object in facing the wind,
are apt to shirk the trouble of flying against it, and drift away
to leeward. Of course, if it is an eyess that has gone astray, and
the place where she was hacked is within easy reach, there is a more
or less strong probability that she may have gone towards it. Eyess
hobbies, when lost, are said almost invariably to go back to the hack
place in this way. Merlins have been known to do so, though not within
my own experience. But a really strong and fast hawk, in full flying
order, seems often to assume almost at once the rôle of a wild one.
Such a hawk, especially if fond of soaring, soon sees that there will
be little difficulty in finding her own living. And she sets about it
without any particular influence to guide her, starting in whatever
direction chance may decide, and shifting her ground as capriciously
as it is possible to imagine. When Tagrag, already mentioned, was out,
he would be reported one night in a certain plantation, and early the
next morning would be seen three or four miles off on the opposite side
of the small village where he ought to have been housed, and where his
brothers were (or ought to have been) lamenting his absence from the
screen-perch.
Farm-houses and all habitations near the spot where a hawk was lost
should be visited without delay. Not only are they generally frequented
by either pigeons or fowls, towards which a stray peregrine or goshawk
may well cast a hungry glance, but their shelter is always a tempting
haven for any wandering house-pigeon which may have been chased and
bested in the air. As the falconer proceeds from place to place,
swinging his lure and calling or whistling, if it is his custom to use
such means of bringing up his hawk, he should note the behaviour of the
rooks and other birds within sight The presence of any hawk, especially
if carrying a bell, causes some excitement amongst the feathered world.
The unwarlike wanderers of the air, when an armed cruiser comes in
sight, exhibit some such signs of panic as might be expected of a fleet
of merchantmen if a hostile battleship were viewed in the offing. The
symptoms most remarkable are generally those observed in a flight of
rooks, which often begins to whirl about in the air, as if it were
composed of escaped lunatics, shooting up and wheeling suddenly in
unexpected directions, filling the air at the same time with discordant
croaks and screams, and with big black specks, which hurl themselves
about as if driven by impulses which they themselves cannot understand
or control. But many other birds, by their strange movements and queer
attitudes, will betray the near presence of a hawk to whose visits they
are unaccustomed. When a hawk has killed anything, and is pluming or
eating it, crows, magpies, and jays have a way of sitting on the top
of a neighbouring tree, craning their necks, and peering down with a
morbid curiosity as they watch an operation of which they strongly
disapprove.
Rooks, starlings, and small birds are all fond of mobbing a strange
hawk when they think they can do it with impunity, and swallows
occasionally indulge in the same rather adventurous amusement. It
is therefore often worth while to make a _détour_ and investigate,
whenever any bird seems to be engaged in eccentric and unusual
movements. Of the thousand and one causes which may have given rise
to such vagaries, only the most practised eye can determine which are
likely to be connected with the appearance of the lost hawk, and which
are not. The safest plan is to go up and make sure that the commotion
is not to be explained in this way. Of course when a hawk has been in
the habit of flying any particular quarry, a disturbance amongst birds
of that species is more likely to arise from her presence than in other
cases. But most peregrines, when they are at large, are fond of taking
occasional shots at lapwings, though very seldom with success. Merlins,
though they are most partial to skylarks, will make stoops at any bird
which they suppose they can tackle, from a wood-pigeon to a wren; and
the short-winged hawks are, of course, almost always ready for any
bloodthirsty adventure.
Fortunately stray hawks, at least of the long-winged kinds, do not
usually betake themselves to thick places where they cannot easily
be seen. In open countries, where alone they should be flown, there
is no great choice for them of convenient perching-places. Probably
the most likely of all stations for them to take up are the tops of
ricks; and here a peregrine, or even a merlin, can be distinguished
at a great distance by a pair of good field-glasses. As a rule, the
best hawks like the highest perches, where they can command, as from
a watch-tower, the farthest view of the country over which they hope
for a chance flight. A hawk which takes perch on low railings or on
the ground is not usually much of a performer. Some of these are very
fond of perching on fallow-fields, where it is almost impossible for
an unpractised eye to distinguish their plumage against the colour of
the ground. A knowledge of their ways will make the falconer aware
that in such a field, however apparently flat, there will be either
mounds or small peaks and projections of earth where clods have been
unevenly turned up, which a hawk is sure to choose as a resting-place
in preference to the surrounding ground for some distance on every
side. The predilections of each of his hawks for particular kinds of
perching-places will generally have been noted to some extent by the
falconer, who will naturally look for each of them on the sort of
stand which he knows that she most often prefers. Trees, while still
leafy, are some of the worst places in which to have to search, and of
course they are very common resorts. A lost hawk may be watching her
pursuers as unseen as King Charles in the oak, and not deigning to come
down to the most enticing dead lure, until, having cast, she feels an
inclination to do so.
When a lost hawk is not recovered early in the morning a very good
plan is to fly another, either at the lure or at some quarry, in the
neighbourhood of the place where the loss occurred, or where you have
ascertained that the truant was last seen. And the higher the decoy
hawk can be induced to go the more chance will there naturally be that
the other may come up and join her. Whenever one hawk is on the wing
for any length of time, there is a good chance that every other hawk
within about a mile will catch sight of her, and not a bad chance
that the other may come up. In case of a high ringing flight, wild
hawks will come up from much farther than a mile. And lost hawks
will, of course, come and fraternise much more readily, especially if
the stable-companion flown as a decoy happens to have been a comrade
at hack or in some double flights. They will, however, do so quickly
enough without any special inducement at all. A friend of mine brought
a hawk, newly trained, from a distance to Salisbury Plain. She was lost
in a very long flight before she had passed a single night in the house
to which she was being taken, and was not even seen by her owner for
two or three whole days. One morning I was exercising a hawk which the
lost one had never seen, and suddenly there were two hawks stooping to
the lure instead of one. I had never seen the wanderer, but understood
at once what had occurred, and tried to so arrange that the lure should
be struck by the new-comer. Either by accident or design she failed two
or three times in succession to do this, and I was obliged to take down
my own hawk and carry her in, and bring out a live lure for the other,
upon which she was quickly taken up. Both Tagrag, which had been out
a week, and a merlin, which had been out for nine days, were brought
up from the unknown hack ground to join in a ringing flight by another
hawk, and recaptured in the same way.
A trained hawk will sometimes be taken off by wild ones, with which
she will go soaring and otherwise amusing herself for a while. But the
good-fellowship between them does not usually last long. In the open
places where long-winged hawks are flown there are often a good many
wild hawks about--peregrines, merlins, and occasionally even hobbies,
besides the ubiquitous kestrel, with which the higher quality hawks
disdain to associate. But each wild hawk, or at least each pair or
family of wild hawks, seems to have its own appointed beat, and resents
the intrusion into it of a stranger. Everyone knows that birds will
frequently attack any interloper which comes with any intention of
staying and quartering itself in the country already appropriated by
its own denizens. Now the wild hawks, though they will often attack
a trained one as soon as they have set eyes upon her, yet will also
often go playing with her as long as their idea is that she is merely a
visitor, and will not permanently poach on their preserves. It is when
they find that the new-comer is really intending to take up her abode
in the neighbourhood, and appropriate her share of the booty, which
they looked upon as reserved for themselves, that they begin to really
make it so hot for her that she is fain to get on into a less-favoured
district which has not been already effectively occupied. Thus the
copse haunted by a couple of young peregrines, or the down quartered by
a wild merlin every day, is not the best place to look for a trained
bird of the same species which has been lost for more than twenty-four
hours, although during the first period the tame and the wild bird may
be seen stooping at one another or racing together in a most amicable
style. If you have seen them together one day, and been unable to get
down your own hawk, you will do well to seek her afterwards not on the
same ground, but in a different, though not very distant, district.
As soon as you can get well within sight of your lost hawk, the live
lure may be relied upon to effect her capture, until she has been out
several days--in the case of eyesses for at least a week. But I should
not advise forcing it upon her notice at a time when she has a full
crop, if you can defer this at all safely until she has had time to
get a bit hungry again. For though she will probably take and kill the
bird offered, she may, if she is not hungry, refuse to stay on it while
you can secure her; whereas when she is keen after her meal you will
be able to wind her up as she stands over it on any reasonably level
piece of ground. The process of winding up consists in merely dragging
a fine line, the end of which is affixed to the quarry or to a stone
or weight, round and round the feet of a hawk which is feeding on the
ground. The difficulty is to pass the line under the tail, which, of
course, acts as a mild sort of shield to keep the cord off. As the
falconer walks round and round his hawk with the end of the line in
his hand he must wait, as the line gets to the hawk's tail, for a
favourable opportunity of pulling it under. If the hawk is fidgety and
keeps disengaging her feet from the loops which have been already wound
round her, it may be necessary to make many circles, and to begin the
work several times all over again. But if the hawk is not frightened
by any violent pulls on the line, or by unsuccessful attempts to take
her up, the loops will sooner or later be so securely hitched round one
or both feet that she cannot possibly escape. In the case of a hawk
which has been out long, and is shy and suspicious, a long line must
be used, and much care must be taken not to alarm her by jerking or
tugging at it as you wind. Some hawks will, during a week's holiday,
have retained a great many of the habits and much of the tameness which
a course of training has deeply instilled into them, while others will
in the same space of time have developed into almost wild creatures.
This method of recapture is usually the simplest and handiest, when it
is found impossible to take the hawk up by hand in the ordinary way.
For no preparation or paraphernalia are required except a live lure
and a long coil of string. If, however, you prefer to haul about with
you a bow net with its pegs and rings, and do not mind the trouble and
delay of setting the net, with the bait in the proper place, that will,
of course, effect your purpose in many instances very well. But it is
rather an intricate business compared with the other, and one in which
an unpractised hand may easily make a mistake.
Another plan which has been recommended is to fly a bagged pigeon or
other quarry in a light creance, and let the lost hawk take it. Then,
as she is breaking in, walk slowly in and endeavour to take her up with
the hand. If she objects and tries to carry, let her go, but keep hold
of her victim, which she will be obliged to drop. Then, pegging that
victim down firmly to the ground, take a few feathers and stick them
up in the earth on every side of the body, the tips bending inwards,
but not quite touching it. Round these feathers pass the loop of a cord
with a running slip-knot in it, and carry the end of the cord right
away to a distance, where you can hide, or where at least your presence
will not prevent the hawk from coming back. As soon as she has come
back pull the string, which will tighten the noose round her legs, and,
keeping it taut, run in and secure your prisoner. The plan is ingenious
and sounds feasible. I cannot doubt that it has been found so.
Only--what if the hawk never comes back at all? You may sit for hours,
with the string ready in your hand, waiting for her to reappear, and if
she does not, will you not look rather small? Often, perhaps, hawks do
so reappear. But sometimes I can affirm that they do not. A lost hawk
in full condition and feather will, if scared away from one quarry,
not always sit disconsolate watching for a chance of getting back to
it, but go off simply and kill something else. A third-rate hawk may
be so overjoyed at having for once captured some live creature, and so
diffident about getting another before nightfall, that she will hang
about and come back to her much-prized victim. But remember that it is
the best hawks which run most risk of being lost, and which one is most
anxious to get back.
Some hawks seem to have a natural aptitude for feeding themselves. They
will do so at hack, before their sisters and brothers have even chased
anything except in fun; and when left out for a night they may be seen
in the early morning careering about after their favourite quarry, or
some other. When tidings are brought in as to their whereabouts, the
message is either that she was "see'd on a bird," or "very near got
'im," or at least was "chasin' of 'em like one o'clock." Such hawks
are easier to track, no doubt, than the dull ones which sit still by
the hour together; but on the other hand, more activity is required to
come up with them and disabuse them of the idea that their rôle is now
merely that of a wild bird. Liberty often acts as a wonderful stimulant
to a trained hawk's energies. The same falcon which has persistently
refused rooks, and can seldom score off a partridge, will perhaps after
twenty-four hours' fasting in the tree-tops bowl over with alacrity
whichever of these quarries first offers her a chance, and then, having
been reduced again into bondage, relapse into the same indifference,
and refuse to be induced by any amount either of feeding up or starving
to fly a yard after one or the other. It is extraordinary what feats
a bad hawk can be made to do by the schooling of the hard mistress
Necessity. There was once a lame merlin which had injured her wing
badly against a wire, and could only just fly at all, and that with a
clumsy wobbling action. She was turned out loose in a place where some
rebellious hobbies were being hacked, on the chance of her bringing
them down to participate in her meals; but finding one day that her
rations were not forthcoming until much later than usual, she wandered
off in search of what she could pick up for herself, and was caught by
a lad about three miles away from where she had started, on a small
bird which she had actually killed single-handed!
It is a good plan, when a hawk is out, and there are more searchers
available than one, for one of them to stay at home a good deal, so
that if news of the truant is brought from any quarter he may at once
set off with his lure, and hurry straight to the spot indicated. It is
vexatious after a twenty-mile walk to find on returning that if you
had saved your trouble and sat quietly at home you would probably have
been by now in possession of your fugitive. The labourers and other
people who are likely to catch sight of a lost hawk should be warned
not to attempt to catch it,--which is a feat that yokels have an almost
insuperable desire to undertake,--but to come at once and bring word
to the owner or his falconer. Rewards should be offered and paid for
any such information which results in the recapture, but not otherwise,
unless there is corroborative evidence as to the facts reported; for
otherwise the too generous falconer may find that whenever one of his
hawks is lost several King Richards are reported in the field at the
same time, though not at the same place.
After a hawk has been recaptured, it behoves the captor to consider
what sort of preparation, if any, is required before she is flown
again. Much will depend, of course, upon the character of the
individual. A case has been very recently mentioned in print, where
a falcon lost in a flight at rooks in the spring was only recaptured
in autumn, after more than twenty weeks' liberty, and yet was then
nearly as tame as when his holiday began. On the other hand, I have
known a hawk in one week become so wild and shy that the manning of
him and making him to the lure took nearly as long as if he had just
been caught on the passage. A day, or even two, naturally has little
enough effect in nullifying in an eyess the lessons which she began
in early life. Two or three days' flying at the lure, and a slight
reduction in the quantity and quality of her repasts, will generally
make her obedient and reliable enough. But with a passage hawk it is
quite a different story. Often you will have to hark back to some of
the practical arguments which you used before, when she was being
laboriously converted from a wild into a tame creature. Washed meat may
have to be put in requisition, and when the moment does come to put her
on the wing again in the field, great endeavours should be made to give
her a good start at her quarry, so that she may again grow reconciled
to her master's mode of operations, and not go off to commence a fresh
campaign on her own account.
Very often a hawk, especially if not a very first-class performer,
comes back from an outing a good deal improved, not only in health,
but in flying powers. Occasionally, however, I have known it to turn
out otherwise. The danger is with some hawks that while they are out
they may learn to run cunning. This abominable vice is, I think,
rare in hawks, especially in young ones. But I have known it in a
jack-merlin--not of my own training--as early as in August; and it
developed itself very badly in another jack which I lost for three days
in September, and which before he was left out had shown no signs of
it. The line adopted by the offender is to fly lazily after the quarry,
waiting for it to put in, when he marks the place, and going straight
to it jumps (if he can) upon the fugitive. Sometimes the offence
originates in double flights, when an inferior hawk, having allowed
her partner to do all or most of the work, cuts in at the finish and
secures the quarry. But it is more rare in merlins than in jacks, which
seem to me the most prone of any hawks to this vice. A game-hawk has,
of course, little or no temptation to indulge in it, and a rook-hawk
would spoil her own game by doing so, as she cannot follow into covert.
The fault, when once developed, is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to
entirely cure. Double flights should be entirely eschewed; and when the
hawk has flown cunning and failed she may be left where she is, unlured
and unfed, until later in the day, and then flown again and again until
she tries harder. Wild hawks (and trained ones, if long left out)
often fall into a habit of picking their flights, _i.e._ starting at a
quarry, and, if they find it a good one, turning back and waiting for
an easier chance. On the whole, therefore, if only for this reason,
I am averse to leaving out a trained hawk longer than is absolutely
unavoidable.