In pursuit of the game

Women have hunted with hawks and falcons for hundreds of years, and are still helping to keep this most ancient sport alive today

- GABRIEL STONE

THERE is a fine line between wild and tame with any animal. Hours of patient training can fall apart as instinct takes over at a sudden flap of plastic or bolt of a hare. Yet nowhere is that line more precariously traced than with falconry. No domesticated animal can revert so quickly and successfully to fending for itself in the wild – but then a hawk, however well trained, is never truly domesticated. A horse or hound will visibly enjoy, indeed often reciprocate, an affectionate nuzzle. If you need that sort of validation from your animals, then it may be best to give birds of prey a wide berth.

Nevertheless, for thousands of years man and hawk have forged an intimate partnership everywhere from China to the Middle East and Europe. Then, as now, falconry was invariably a male-dominated pastime but there are plenty of colourful female role models. Japanese falconers trace their roots back to Kochiku, the woman credited with introducing this noble pursuit to her country in the fourth century AD. Eleanor of Arborea not only managed to fend off the King of Aragon to rule most of Sardinia during the late 14th century but was also a keen falconer who implemented perhaps the first ever legislation to protect these birds. The Eleonora’s falcon was named in her honour.