Blood Ties

by Crane, Ben;

  Theoretically, trapping any bird of prey is as simple as that.

  The practice is far more complex.

  It is not enough to place a trap in a field and hope for success. What separates theory from practice is the knowledge of how a hawk behaves in the context of its own biology, and within specific ecosystems. Trapping is selective, a considered and passionate culmination of lengthy experience, of deeply held human curiosity and a total understanding of the local environment. A good trapper will know nest sites and feeding grounds. They will have built up a large and complex picture of how the hawk or falcon functions. A trapper must possess a complete knowledge of lifecycles, moods and movements, and places of safety. They will know where hawks bathe and roost and at what time, and from what position they hunt, pluck and consume prey. If trapped too early, or too young, the hawk may be noisy, aggressive and difficult to handle. It may not have learnt to hunt with skill and will have difficulty killing suitable quarry. Even if the trapper gets it right, the hawk or falcon may be ill, or have an unseen injury. If so, it is released immediately and the whole process starts again. On top of this, every species of raptor, from an eagle to a sparrowhawk, behaves in a different way. Even within a specific clutch, all siblings vary enormously in their reactions to the world. All trapping practices are specific to the type of hawk or falcon trapped, the landscape and the natural fauna the hawks prey on. Trapping requires sensitive observation and inquisitiveness and is the fruitful product of its own evolution. It changes subtly from culture to culture. Like a musical instrument, trapping has different tones and textures, depending on who chooses to play. All methods are equal, all transformative, with the end result the same: a hawk or falcon on a gloved hand; the purest of notes played. At its best, trapping is advanced field biology, developed and perfected long before this area of science was formalized.

  As one would expect, knowledge of this calibre takes many years to accumulate. In Pakistan it survives by word of mouth, from generation to generation. A loving father walking his eight-year-old son through the dawn is just the beginning.

  The details of the trapping sites the tribal falconers use are closely guarded information. To trap a hawk can take a long time, sometimes weeks. Despite my obvious enthusiasm for trying to trap a hawk, Salman explains it is not the right time. I had to wait until my return from Pakistan in order to experience trapping first-hand. But what was being explained to me in the compound corresponded exactly to the experience I later had when trapping in America. Despite being on a different continent, in a different culture, we used methods replicating the oldest traditions of Pakistan: a perfect example of the overlapping interconnectedness of falconry. More importantly, the experience I had in America outlined the long tail of history and hidden influence Muslim culture has had on the West.

  The falcon I trapped was caught near the tribal prairie land of the Lower Brule, the territory of the Sioux Indian nation. I used a variation of the bal-chatri, a device called a pigeon harness. A tiny leather rucksack covered in nooses; a long nylon cord and a heavy weight coil from the back. The rucksack is strapped to a live pigeon, which attracts the falcon. On the attack, the falcon catches the prey easily, entangling its feet in exactly the same manner as in a bal-chatri, the heavy weight preventing the falcon flying off.

  A South Dakota winter is harsh and cold, wind whipping the temperatures down to around minus 30°C. The prairie grass and all other vegetation is brittle, frozen and coated in a fine, zinc-white snow. It took two days, driving carefully, in white-out conditions, to reach the trapping grounds.

  In the warmth of the deluxe four-by-four, and in preparation for trapping, the harness was slipped over the pigeon. Driving the long, straight roads, we looked for signs of fresh kills or falcons in flight. Several were spotted in quick succession, but they were either too old or had injured feet from hunting wild prairie dogs and chipmunks, so were left alone.

  Towards late afternoon on the second day a prime-looking juvenile was spotted perched on a T-shaped electricity pylon. From a safe distance, and as seen through binoculars, she had no malformations or injury; all was clear. Eight hundred yards beyond her position, the truck was turned, the straps re-checked, and the pigeon folded up tightly. Slowly passing beneath the falcon, the pigeon was tossed from the window. Once we had left the immediate area, the pigeon began to flutter and pull at the end of the cord. The sight of this sudden meal was too much for the falcon to ignore. From her perch she dropped down and smoothly landed on the pigeon, slicing through the neck, killing it cleanly. We let her feed. Thirty seconds later the falcon jumped up and lifted off the ground, dropping the pigeon. Free from the trap, untroubled, she circled back around, perching several pylons away. Leaving the truck and examining the lifeless pigeon, I saw that a large chunk of breast meat had been removed with surgical precision, the snow stained a deep luminescent red. The conditions were hard and she was clearly hungry.

  Having only one pigeon, now half eaten and dead, the harness was of no use; improvisation and quick thinking were required. The bloody, warm carcass was removed from the harness and tied beneath a two-foot square of chicken wire, the nooses on the upper side, a bal-chatri unfolded and flattened over her kill. Leaving the trap on the ground, with the carcass in full view, we moved away. Five minutes passed and the falcon took flight, dropped down, pumping hard into the wind, and landed on the trap.

  Visibly entangled, in fear, fury and with powerful strokes, she rose up with the dead pigeon and trap into the sky, hit a gust of wind and glided low out over the prairie. In our haste the trap had not been secured to the ground correctly. If lost, the falcon would certainly die a painful, protracted death. In the distance, she lifted again and flew another three hundred yards, landed, lifted again, and flew another significant distance. The situation was becoming dangerous and we were losing control.

  Not content to let her die, I jumped from the truck and started running, the mess of moving trap and falcon now bouncing across the frozen grasslands three to five hundred yards away. At the sight of a frenzied human running, she lifted again and made another powerful flight. Momentarily blinded by the glare of sun on snow, when I re-focused the falcon had evaporated into the landscape.

  It is a misconception that a prairie is entirely flat. Similar to a ploughed field viewed from ground level, the deep troughs of a prairie are hidden from view. Such is the vast breadth and width of the landscape, it creates an optical illusion of supposed flatness. In reality, this prairie is covered in furrows and dips deeper than a London bus. The falcon could have been a hundred yards away, distressed and injured, and I would not have known. I stopped to listen. As time ticked by, I felt bereft, and I felt anger. If she died, lost and alone, it would be my fault.

  I waited.

  Usually when a hawk or falcon goes to ground, crows and rooks will begin circling and mobbing; a natural reaction to an unwanted bird of prey. High in the sky, three dots appeared at different corners of the compass: north, east and west. Danger and predation were arriving at an alarming rate. Looking to the rough area where the dots would collide, I started running. On the cusp of a slight incline, the falcon was spinning about, tied to the trap. As I reached her a wild peregrine, a ferruginous hawk and a golden eagle were skimming in towards the stricken falcon. I shouted and attempted to wave them away, the three-tier circle of raptors wound around in the sky, no more than thirty feet above my head. Instinctively trying to protect the falcon, I pulled her and the trap tight to my chest. As I turned my gaze skywards, the eagle flew in dangerously close and low, the white shine of snow reflected across the moisture of its eye. The hawk, eagle and peregrine, unprepared and unwilling to deal with a human, wheeled off in different directions, in search of an easier meal.

  In my hands, the warmth of the falcon’s body was a sensation beyond words. I untangled her from the trap and held her at eye-level. Common to all prairie falcons, she had a large, streamlined, flat head and a pronounced bony ridge above her eye
s. Her beak was strong and light with a pale blue-grey colour. She opened it in protest, revealing soft ridges of flesh and a tongue shaped like the tip of an arrow. Her breath, hot and sweet, smelt like a carpaccio of pigeon. Her feathers were a fractured mix of buff and cream with brown tones spread in tiny spattered ovals across a base of pure white. She was immaculate: no dents, bumps or broken feathers. The muscles of her chest are swollen with healthy fat, her feet tense and tight. Looking into her eyes, she lacked all definable human emotion, I saw no recognizable expression. She protected herself with a self-contained, seemingly immutable stillness. She was the perfect echo of a snow-covered prairie. I fell instantly in love.

  In the truck she was folded gently into a tube of elasticated cloth, preventing indignant struggling and the breaking of feathers. On the weighing scales, she came in at just under two pounds. A healthy wild falcon, trapped using methods invented long before North America was ‘discovered’ – methods the tribal falconers in the Pakistani compound would recognize as their own.

  *

  Once trapped, a wild hawk or falcon needs to be trained. Like the little musket belonging to the boy and his father in Pakistan, or the falcon I trapped on the prairie, a wild bird of prey will naturally exhibit fear in the presence of humans. To create a working relationship, this fear needs to be eradicated. Almost a lost art in the West, ‘waking’ is one of the oldest known ways of overcoming the bird’s fear. The process still exists in the most traditional falconry enclaves, and it is a method still used by the tribal falconers.

  In the case of the little boy’s trapped and sealed musket, the process of waking begins when the hawk is taken to a darkened room. The threads sealing the hawk are gently untied and the lack of light in the room acts like a giant black box, keeping it calm. For three, four days the hawk is kept awake, rotated, swapped and passed between participating members of the tribe. At around the third day the musket will enter a trance-like state, one that temporarily bypasses fear. Once shrouded by this frame of mind, it is taken outside and exposed to various situations, without hysterical reaction. From this point the hawk is quickly trained to fly to the falconer, then to fly free and, finally, to go hunting.

  As with trapping, the theory of waking is simple, the practice markedly different. The reality of waking is a quasi-mystical experience that takes almost a hundred hours, a process that stretches time and tiredness, producing a weird and improbable synaptic melding between the hawk and the human. As with sealing and trapping, waking has evolved out of a detailed understanding of a wild hawk’s psychology.

  I know this because I have tried it.

  In contrast to the tribal falconers in Sindh, the goshawk used at the waking I attempted was bred legally in captivity. From hatching to rearing, she had no contact with humans. Removed from the chamber at roughly the same age as a trapping occurs in Pakistan, she was wild and stroppy. Weighing over three pounds, motivated by fear and anger, she was not easily handled and potentially dangerous. A fearful, aggressive female goshawk can pin your hands together; if she becomes attached to your neck, or face, you would require hospital treatment. Significant care and kid gloves are required during a waking, and previous experience with a hawk is essential. It is not a solitary pursuit; the inherent dangers and length of time involved preclude individual success. If a lone, inexperienced falconer tries waking, a slight madness and failure will follow. As a process, waking is a serious collective human endeavour.

  We – four men and two women – started the waking in my darkened cottage. There in case of emergency or accident, among our group was an avian vet and falconer. We worked on rotation, hoping to keep the process as close to the methods of Pakistan as possible.

  When scared, a hawk will puff up and spread its wings, doubling in size, becoming intimidating. Throughout the first twenty-four hours our hawk was agitated, frustrated and wild. She threw herself forward off the fist, hung upside down, her beak open, in a constant state of hostility. Each time she was gently lifted back onto the glove. All eye-to-eye contact was avoided and our movements slowed in lock-step with her mood.

  By the second day her feathers were no longer puffed up, and she was no longer leaping regularly from the fist. All hawks have a thin, opaque third eyelid, a nictitating membrane. This membrane flips up and covers the eyeball when a hawk blinks. As the goshawk grew tired, the nictitating membrane lifted slowly; her outer eyelids, drooping to slits, were three quarters closed. She was floating softly between the fragile line of sleep and consciousness. When the outer lids touched together we all moved position, gently rotated the glove or swapped her to another falconer. Suspicious of change, her eyes would flip open, the nictitating membrane slide back below her lower lid, and she would remain awake and alert. By mid-morning of day two she had calmed considerably. We could move about without triggering fear and she slowly began to tolerate our company. By late evening, she gently entered a hypnotic, hazy state, as if trapped in a soft bubble, the volume of her world turned down and tuned out. The transformation was spellbinding; all residual fear seemed to leak away, disintegrate and evaporate from her feathers, replaced by an air of quizzical bemusement. She was awake but seemingly dreaming, capable of occasional alarm followed by longer periods of calm.

  We were equally dazed. Some of us had slept, some just dozed, all hollowed out by time; conversation and excitement long since drained. We shared lasting moments of silence, gaping holes, repeated conversations, cyclical, a dull thudding in the head. Flashes of anger and annoyance were forced back, a missed fragment of meaning, a vague insult, perception unsure, remain calm. Those of us who had not slept entered a space both real and surreal, an unstable fine line between knowing what was factual and what was imagined.

  The morning of day three entered darkly. A log fire burning, all lights off, in tired silence the collected group melted, blurred, obscure in purple shadows. As the light outside increased the atmosphere within changed. The hawk and the group parted, everyone now fidgety, but calm. We took a stroll across the fields through light mist rising. Small birds broke open the dawn, a mounting, stunning cacophony, loud across the cold and chill of the early hour. The silence between humans was deafening. At a farm gate a huge shire horse stepped forward with sweet breath snorting. Frightened of her own reflection a day before, the hawk leant forward and gently touched the huge beast with her beak.

  In the garden of the cottage the hawk was finally released from the glove and placed on a perch. She took a bath and drank deeply from the water. To bathe in the wild puts a hawk in a position of vulnerability. They bathe only when relaxed or confident of safety. It was a good sign. When finished, she hopped back on to her perch. The sun was warm and cast fingers of light across the garden and over her back. Relaxed, she slept standing up for the briefest moment.

  Taking her back up on the glove, something had clicked. We had pushed her through a barrier, and now coming back into focus, the hawk was entirely without fear. It was only then it occurred to me the term ‘waking’ stemmed not from the obvious, not from keeping her awake; rather, it was about waking her to a new state of being.

  The sun was still bright as we walked back along the lanes then drove off in cars, ending up at a busy country pub. The hawk, perched happily on the edge of our table, became an obvious centre of attention. Children and adults came up, asked questions. Different dogs scurried about, eating crisps off the floor. At one point the hawk flapped and scattered drinks across the table; a crashing noise, splintered glass bottles spun on flint. Unfazed, she regained her perch on the corner of the table and watched as we cleaned up the mess. Later that day, she was happily driven home, and looked out of the car window from the glove. The waking over, the next stage of her training could begin.

  The discovery of this gentle transition from fear to calm through shared sleep deprivation is one of the most interesting feats of our knowledge and understanding of hawks. Waking is unique among the ways humans have learnt to train any animal. It has also
survived the test of time; it is no surprise then that the young boy with the trapped and sealed musket was being shown how to use this method by his father in Pakistan.

  *

  Back in the compound, it was now approaching mid-morning and the swapping of stories and discussions about training and trapping are over. Different members of the tribe wander off to farm the fields or work in a nearby seed factory. Chanesar walks across the compound and picks up his goshawk, motioning me to join him, and we walk to a wash of water behind the far wall. Three egrets, immaculate pure-white sentinels with lime-green beaks, point at the surface, fishing. The goshawk twitches. Stirred to flight, the egrets arch up into the sky. Chanesar slips his hawk, the clip of her wings triple that of the target. The slowest egret shrieks, twists and turns back to earth, and dumps on the ground. The goshawk skims above it, flares her tail, and shoots up vertically to about twenty feet, ready to strike. The egret, sensing a chance, seeks sanctuary beneath Chanesar’s legs. The goshawk, confused, misses. The egret, panicking, flaps forward back to the water and attempts to dive under. It is too shallow and the goshawk pins and pushes the egret easily in to the mud. Chanesar removes the egret from the hawk and ties it to the smallest child among a group gathered watching us. The little boy, beaming, spends the next few hours carrying the egret around as a new pet. He touches and strokes the feathers and makes the egret fly before pulling it back to earth. He talks to it and wanders about proudly showing it off to anyone who comes near.

  Just before we leave for the proper hunting, the egret is taken from the small boy by an older sibling. In front of his brother, the young man kills and butchers it, waving a leg and wing to taunt him. The little egret owner, bereft, hysterical, cries for a good fifteen minutes.