Blood Ties

by Crane, Ben;

  I have stripped away everything I consider superfluous. I have turned my back on a well-paid career and a post-graduate teaching certificate from Cambridge University. I live as simply as possible, earning a modest income as an artist and through seasonal summer work on country estates. I live with two dogs. My cottage is down an old bumpy track on the outskirts of a tiny village. I own no substantial property, I have no debts, no credit cards and little in the way of modern amenities apart from an old laptop. I have no double glazing, no central heating, just a large log burner in the front room. When I am cold, I collect wood and make a fire. I use little electricity, have no television, no phone landline, no Wifi, no internet and no distractions. When I am hungry I walk into the fields and go hawking. If I fail to kill, I try to trap other animals or catch fish. I have fruit trees and three small vegetable patches. I own a freezer and a fridge and buy other vegetables seasonally from farmers’ markets. If I require anything else, the village shop and post office is three miles away, the nearest supermarket six.

  This is not a life that would suit everyone. I feel the elements and the seasons directly: autumn and winter are cold, dark and long. But when spring arrives, songbirds nest in the roof and produce offspring so numerous and so vocal the whole cottage literally sings. On summer evenings I sit on my front step and watch four species of indigenous bat flit and skip across the dusk. In a half-mile radius, there are foxes, frogs, natterjack toads, great-crested newts, grass snakes, wild sparrowhawks and nesting goshawks. Flies fly in through the door and I watch the spiders in the corners catch them. I have rats in the roof, a hedgehog that hibernates behind the chimney. Nearby, there are peregrine falcons, marsh harriers, red kite, buzzards, kestrels and merlins. Stoat and weasels regularly streak past, jerking and hopping, hypnotic when hunting. The fields and coppices contain pheasant, rabbit, curlew, lapwing and lark. Hares box one another in March. The brook is awash with insects, spawning brown trout, salmon and a dozen species of duck. Kingfishers nest in the bank running along the stream. Elvers from the Sargasso Sea, translucent silver shards, swarm up the dam to the many silt-laden ponds dotted around the cottage. Indigenous crayfish, little armoured fresh-water lobsters, hide tight, tucked under rocks in the nearby reservoir. Both native species of woodpecker zip past with a looping, swaying flight. Bullfinch, collared dove, greenfinch and dozens of hedge sparrows bob about in the garden. Because the cottage is situated on a migratory path, thousands of greylag, Canada and pink-footed geese fly honking low and loud over the roof. Here the natural world is abundant, bursting, squabbling, chirruping and stretching at the seams, inside and out, all year round.

  A life lived through and for a hawk is ever evolving, ever surprising, a sensuous experience based on rhythms in tune with natural cycles. It is a life awake with potential, always exhilarating. A life that readily sends me into the landscape, into nature, to think, to feel and to wonder.

  1

  The Road to Pakistan

  A bell for a hawk is small and significant.

  A good hawk will kill at tremendous distances, feed in thick cover, silent, camouflaged and almost invisible. When the falconer finally arrives, the high-pitched cadence of a bell is often the last lifeline between location and loss.

  In the distant past a falconer would make all their own equipment. Gloves, hawking bags, lures, swivels, perches, hoods and most certainly bells, all bespoke, all unique, all tailor-made to suit. Now mass-produced and machined, convenience has put paid to the individuality of handcrafted bells. Among falconers, there is great prestige in making your own equipment, particularly if the process is a lost art. Naturally, I became obsessed with rediscovering how to make bells and quickly ordered all the equipment without any real knowledge of how to construct them.

  For over a week I worked wildly, using intuition and learning from my mistakes. I coated the house in a fine metallic dust, razor-sharp strips of metal became trapped in the floor, cutting feet. I burnt holes in the carpet. Too focused and frenzied to bother with safety equipment, chunks of metal scattered like stars, flew from the Dremel and embedded in my forehead, creating a tattoo of dark metallic spots beneath a red-raw rash. Some bells looked beautiful and worked; others fell apart almost immediately. To refine them and find consistency, I went to the library for books and turned to social media for help.

  The Arabian and Muslim nations have a long and intimate connection with falconry. Birds of prey spiral through the very core of their way of life. Long before the West knew the potential of hawks or falcons for hunting, the Muslim world was perfecting and turning the practice into high science. They helped introduce the practice to Europe through trade routes and the prophet Muhammad is said to have been an avid falconer. It is no surprise, then, that the oldest styles and most traditional falconry bells are still handcrafted in the East.

  After searching falconry forums, I found images of intricately carved and jewelled bells, the artistry and design detailed and beautiful beyond belief. The gentleman selling them was a falconer from Pakistan. So I emailed the seller, a man named Salman Ali. Over the course of our correspondence, I asked to come and see how they were made. He agreed so, in 2007, I emptied my bank account and booked a flight. It was as impulsive and as simple as that.

  I estimated the trip within Pakistan would take two or three days. I would check into a hotel and be there and back within a week. Outlining the small dangers of Karachi, Salman instead invited me to stay at his house, remain in Pakistan for a longer period and fly goshawks in wilder parts of Sindh province. We would then travel to Lahore and meet the bell-maker. I had no real idea of the consequences this generous offer would bring. I simply took a Muslim stranger at face value, my well-being now in his hands.

  A few months later, a quiet, smartly dressed, muscular man warily shook my hand at the airport and we drove to his house in the affluent suburbs. Heavily disorientated and jet-lagged, I crashed out into a long sleep. The next morning, in a small, tidy courtyard under the shade of a large fig tree, we sat sipping tea.

  In the walled yard, Salman had established a modest falcon rehabilitation centre. Over his shoulder, four wild falcons were blocked out on perches: a saker, a smaller male of the same species; a sakret; a lugger falcon; and a species of peregrine with the beautiful name of red-naped shaheen (pronounced shaar-heen).

  These species of falcon are highly prized on the Arabian Peninsula, some individuals fetching up to £35,000 or more. Over the centuries, sakers and luggers have been trapped in large numbers, transported, exported and sold illegally in animal markets, or to rich, private individuals in the Gulf states. Many die in the process and, coupled with increasing habitat loss, all of them are very much under threat.

  Once healthy, these particular falcons were to be re-released and would potentially go on to live long and productive lives when released. Unfortunately, it was also likely they would once again be illegally trapped, finding themselves back in the market place. Conservation uppermost in his mind, Salman reasoned the slight chance of success was well worth the time and effort.

  A healthy falcon of any species has a formidable and impressive presence, their eyes clear dark orbs, their feet clean, powerful, scaly, lizard-like tridents, capable of snatching prey at speed in mid-air. The beak should be smooth, clipped, tip sharp and curved. The shape and appearance of a healthy falcon is akin to warm air rolling over a summer crop. From head to tail, as you follow their outline, feathered contours flow with gentle indentations, smooth undulations; no breaks, no splintered edges. A fit falcon is a feather-perfect inverted teardrop.

  The falcons in Salman’s yard were misshapen, scummy, a dull colour. They emanated an inherently odd impression, dissolved at the wrong angles, stood badly, eyes tired, cloudy; they seemed almost half built, restrained and infinitely sad. On inspection, they had various ailments: broken feathers; fractured and split beaks; twisted, cankered, pox-riddled, scabbed and sore feet. Distressing to see, these external injuries were only the tip of the
iceberg.

  Hawks and falcons rarely show weakness unless close to death, a natural safety mechanism preventing predation in the wild by other animals. It requires keen observation and hard-won experience to ascertain and understand the root causes of the deeper diseases lurking beyond the obvious.

  To be rehabilitated correctly, a bird of prey requires a consistent supply of food. It can take many months to nurse a hawk or falcon back from illness, and they must be fed daily. England has specific producers of raptor food, much of it a by-product from our egg-laying industry. All the protein is clean, bacteria free, cheap and delivered to the door at the click of a button. Once defrosted, the meat can be fed directly, without any fear or worry of cross-contamination.

  Salman was using feral street pigeons.

  Running short, we went to purchase some from the animal market. Down a honeycomb of dark, medieval passages, hundreds of square mesh cages were stacked column by column, twenty feet high. Monkeys, birds, falcons, rodents, owls, lizards, all pushed and packed inches apart, the noise, smell and heat cloying. Piss and shit dripped and splattered down through the wire, on to every animal, top to bottom. I felt something tugging at the edge of my trousers. Fat rats slipped and bumped across my boots.

  The purchase complete, we hauled the plastic sack of wriggling and restless birds to the jeep. We spent the rest of the afternoon butchering them by hand, inspecting each for disease. One scrawny carcass contained a large yellow sack of rotting fluid around the heart. Salman threw it away. In its place, we killed several wild trapped sparrows which were bobbing about in cages behind the house. Once fed, the falcons relaxed, and we applied prepared acacia paste (a natural antibiotic) to their feet and left it to do its work.

  At midnight, I was told to pack a small bag, and we set off to the coach station.

  *

  Outside the city limits a dozen hours pass as we travel in blackness. As dawn breaks, Sindh province emerges disconcertingly, large fields of kilns belching fire and smoke, burning and turning clay into solid workable bricks. It looks like a wasteland.

  At the last coach stop we take a taxi, arriving at the side of a road near a tiny village. The landscape has changed, now fecund, stretching flat, a vast strip from left to right. Irrigation ditches streak horizontally to the distance, trees and shrubs are dotted near and far. In front of us is a low nondescript wall, in its centre, partially hidden by a palm tree, a door.

  Inside, a large rectangular compound opens up. Three modest homes are haphazardly built into the corners. Along the wall two stables, a donkey, a latrine. A dozen tough-looking chickens and a bitch with puppies stroll and scamper about in the sun.

  Four men – Manzoor, Chanesar, Jamal and Haider – greet us. Their children bring two raffia rope beds out to the centre of the compound and we sit. Three of the men disappear into their houses, re-emerging moments later, each carrying a large goshawk.

  The hawks look about, searching for imperceptible movement, blinking at the now bright world around them. Two of them, a male and a female, have tinged red orange smeared across domed yellow irises, a gradation of colour as subtle as ink separated on blotting paper. Their feathers are a mix of light browns, with touches of slate grey across the wings and back. These darker, bluish feathers pop up sporadically in patches, following no particular pattern. The varied coloration indicates they are passing into maturity, their adult feathers slowly emerging, becoming more prevalent, resplendent.

  The smaller female has a pure plumage of caramel cream, light brown and touches of white. She is muted, camouflaged in comparison with the male. Fully grown, but hatched less than eight months ago, she is a juvenile of that year.

  Extending from the side of each goshawk are short feathery trousers, that look like culottes. From the base of the culottes, legs and feet extend thick, dense and powerfully strong. The central toe, measuring roughly three inches, is as wide as a man’s finger. A keratin-black talon, curved and scythe-like, doubles the length. Under their pale, yellow-scaled skin, a mass of sinew connects the toe and talon to muscles at the top of their legs.

  These goshawks have been trapped in the wild. They are the first wild goshawks I have ever seen and, although trained, they teeter on a precipice between domestication and unadulterated instinct. Prior to their contact with humans, they had grown and evolved out of the land. At rest, they present a paradox, equal parts beauty and destruction. They have a compact, raw power underpinned and overlaid by delicate feathered fragility, a detailed, subtle softness unexpected in something so deadly. They smother the space with their presence, their outward calm clearly indicating they are at ease with the surroundings. I find them hypnotic.

  Before this moment I had seen many goshawks, all man-made, using artificial insemination or bred in captivity. In comparison, these hawks radiate difference, each possessing a quality uniquely original, something liberated, a life force well beyond human rules and control. They are a celebration of total freedom. Their hard-edged vitality, their context and their history shifts my world on its axis.

  To understand why, you need to know the roots and history of falconry.

  Over 5,000 years ago, on the cusp of the very first human kingdoms, prior to the first written words, before textual history and long before the concept of pressed coins and the idea of paper money, well before organized monotheistic religion, 2,600 years before Islam, and 2,000 years before Christianity, a human or humans on the Russian steppes watched a bird of prey make a kill in the wild.

  Walking down the valley towards the raptor, they startled the hawk and it flew away, leaving the quarry behind. The freshly killed carcass lay half eaten on the ground. They picked it up, looked at it, took it to their camp and ate it. They survived the night. Not content with finding haphazard kills, these humans decided to trap a wild hawk, train it and use the hawk’s natural hunting abilities to provide food for their families.

  Falconry was born.

  There is no written account of this ever happening, but images of humans hunting with birds of prey exist from this time. Along with dogs and horses, hunting with birds of prey represents one of the oldest examples of humankind working with animals in a mutually supportive relationship. The three goshawks in front of me are directly related to this unbroken lineage. The processes by which the tribal falconers trap, train and hunt with these hawks is the same as those used by the first falconers on the Russian steppes. These goshawks are an essential time capsule, underscored with information that has crossed continents and cultures. Their training and existence are a handshake from ancestors unknown, a near-ninety-generation meme surviving the test of time; still living, still a reality, still vital. I am humbled to be in their presence.

  I watch as Haider’s smaller male goshawk notices the chicks pecking at my feet in the dust. The hawk, following their movement, turns his head in one slow, fluid motion. A change of mood washes over him: his feathers noticeably tighten, then relax; he rouses, then yawns. It is clear he will soon be ready for hunting.

  *

  A few hours later the sun has dropped to a bright white disc and with it comes a slight drop in temperature. The timing and change is important to the hawks. Haider rises and moves in a direct, less cordial manner. Chanesar, crouching, examines the floor, studying streaks of hawk faeces in the dust. Normally a black solid in a white liquid surround, it has changed to viridian green foam on an opaque chalky background. This mutation in tone and texture indicates the hawks’ digestive tract is empty of yesterday’s food.

  A lack of protein and the time of day has triggered the hawks’ appetite. They are visibly restless: the feathers on their heads rise to a low crest, the edges thin, jagged like a the outline of a dried teasel. The hawks’ heads begin bobbing, jerking; their pupils expand and dilate. They begin to enter a very specific behavioural phase called yarak.

  In the wild, if a hawk exists on a constant knife edge between starvation and success, if it lives solely from one kill to the next, it will be weak
, inefficient and die. When hunting naturally, a hawk fails more than it succeeds. Nine out of ten attempts at securing a kill end in failure. A hawk therefore needs stamina as much as speed, it needs to be mentally alert, focused and unrelenting when hunting. Any wild hawk surviving to maturity has copious fat reserves, is heavy-set and in perfect condition. Hunger for a wild hawk is not necessarily a motivating factor; they hunt because it is their sole meaning and purpose, for fun, even. The desire to fly and kill without the twist of hunger, to fly on appetite alone, is the mark of the most successful, most powerful and healthiest of hawks.

  Achieving yarak in a falconry hawk is therefore highly technical. Only the most skilful falconers attain it with any level of consistency. A heavy, overweight parent-reared or wild trapped hawk will not want to be near a human and will fly off. To achieve yarak takes time and dedication. The hawk needs to be conditioned correctly, flown daily and to make a kill at least once every other day. To succeed, the hawk and falconer require time, space, land and an abundance of quarry.

  I watch as Haider picks up his goshawk and holds it close to his face. Looking intently into the hawk’s eyes, he pushes his fingers deep through the feathers on to the chest. The goshawk makes no move or protest, is completely relaxed. Haider is feeling his weight, watching his reactions, through observation and touch, intimate indicators emanating from the hawk. The hawk is telling him in detail how deep in yarak he is, and so how close to hunting.

  Later, I feel the hawk myself. He is barrel shaped. There is no bony edge to the chest, just a thin strip of keel; the muscles are compact and round, extreme with fat. I have never felt a hawk as fit and well prepared for hunting, before or since.

  With mounting activity, the tension in the compound is palpable. The extended tribe arrives, milling about near the entrance. Our hawking party is growing, including friends, family, children and elders. Having spent most of the day walking from a village several miles away, dressed in a neat shark-tooth jacket and sporting a fine fake TAG-Heuer watch, a falconer named Punhal arrives with his female sparrowhawk.