Blood Ties

by Crane, Ben;

  The discordant jazz mash-up my son and I have created is now over. We can hear his mother’s car crunching on the gravel drive and he is excited by her arrival. I have put far too much shampoo in his hair and it takes at least ten jugs of water to rinse it clear. I hold my hand on his forehead. I remember getting soap in my eyes when I was a child, and it was horrible. Thankfully, he is spared this ordeal due to my ability to remember. Making sure he doesn’t slip on the floor, I lift him into the bedroom, whizz the towel around his naked body, slide him into his pyjamas and send him downstairs to his mother.

  Simple, really.

  *

  Near fully grown and unlike the sparrowhawks, CC is too big for the house, his feathers long enough to be broken on the sofa or the legs of the chairs and tables. I relocate him to his night quarters for the first time. In the morning I have to visit the vet so I change out of my normal clothes and put on a new bright blue checked shirt. When I open the door to collect him, he rears up, his eyes wide and aggressive, and he begins to bate away from me furiously. It takes a few moments to figure out what the problem is. Then it hits me: I have changed colour. He does not recognize me, I am a bright blue stranger walking into his space, trying to pick him up. I leave him in the mews and change back into my work clothes. Only then can I calmly transfer him to his perch in the garden. I text Steve and ask him about this behaviour. His reply is straightforward:

  ‘Imprint goshawks are autistic, mate.’

  When CC’s feathers are just below full size, he is on the cusp of what falconers classify as being ‘hard penned’. He is no longer ‘in blood’. This means the oxygenated blood carrying hormonal messages for growth recedes from the feather shafts and returns to his body, flesh and muscles. Like the human voice breaking in adolescence, or the obstreperous hormonal arguments of a teenager, CC undergoes a similar change. He becomes agitated, angry and restless. This change would be met with aggressive resistance by wild parents and he would be forced from the nest site. Instead of pushing him away, I have to put up with it and begin to prepare for his training.

  When he is fifty-six-days old, I pick CC up as an adult hawk for the first time. The difference between the previous twenty-four hours and this moment is obvious. He feels different: a condensed mass on my glove, he has swift spirit and the whiff of the deadly. The feeling flows down my body, sinking my feet into the ground. It is so very, very clear why goshawks have stood the test of time. He has the fidgety presence of a middle-weight boxer before stepping into the ring. He is in immaculate condition, is roughly the same size and shape as Haider’s goshawk and exudes the same static power. His eyes are daffodil yellow, the back of his neck is covered in an unusual deep orange buff, like a setting sun permanently cast across his shoulders. Thin, lozenge-shaped feathers snake down his chest. At the sides, they swell and morph into little brown love hearts across a pale, light cream covering. He has his father’s build for speed. His beauty and the crackling potential for unrestrained violence belong to his mother’s genes. Relaxed, CC’s grip is soft on the glove, but he cocks his head, turns a beady eye, leans forward and lets out a bellowing reptilian scream.

  Over-confident, misreading and underestimating his behaviour, later in the day I pick him up without a glove. Unfamiliar with the perch, he clamps down hard. His talons penetrate my flesh easily, forcing themselves into my hand with no more effort than it takes to sink an ice pick into putty. For several seconds my thumb and forefinger are pinned together. A small amount of blood wells up and flows through the folds in the palms of my hands. A boundary has been broken and this first blood flows to a new type of bond. A bond that hurts.

  *

  The bond between my son and his mother is a never-ending source of wonder. I have been looking after him all day. To pass the time I took him to buy an art-based board game. There are various objects, films, books and personalities to be either drawn, modelled or sculpted from paper in accordance with the instructions on a clue card. The other person has to guess what has been created before the sand in the egg timer runs out. It was set up on the table hours ago. He has been waiting for his mum to return so we can play the game. She left at about 6 a.m. and arrives home late, around 8 p.m. As soon as she walks in she sits down, the dice are rolled, the counters move and we begin to play.

  I show her the clue on the card in my hand without my son seeing. She makes a weird blob out of Plasticine. By any stretch of the imagination, it does not resemble anything remotely like the subject. He guesses and gets it right first time. Again, her turn arrives, and the same thing happens. And again. When it is her turn to guess, my son doodles and shapes a small bit of half-torn, crunched-up paper. I am holding the card with the clue so his mother cannot see it. I struggle to see even the slightest hint that what he has created corresponds to the clue. She gets it right. Every time. It is disconcerting. I tell them they are cheating. They laugh and tell me I am just a sore loser. It takes every ounce of effort, drawing on all my skills as an artist, to try to win. They are like twins. It is a tour de force of mutual understanding, their intuition almost telepathic.

  My own mother would have been a remarkable woman had it not been for the men in her life. She remains overshadowed, an emotional shape-shifter, changeable in the face of dominance. I love her, but our bond is ethereal. I find it difficult to latch on, to find a consistent definition. She is there, then she fades to grey. In a certain sense, all my human relationships have been a failed search for attachment. But if you don’t know what something looks like, how can you recognize it and deal with it appropriately?

  By the time we finish playing two games and pack the board away, it is at least 10 p.m. and time for my son to go to bed. His mother thanks him. ‘That was just what I needed after a horrid day.’ It was a lot of fun.

  When we are all in our respective beds, I think back to when my son was a baby. I begin to compare my feelings now to my feelings then. I am hit by a wall of utter shame. Along with all my other muddled emotions, tangled up and deep down I think I may have been jealous of my son. Jealous of his attachment to his mother, and a mother’s attachment to her son. I am thankful that this feeling has passed, transmuted into something far more stable, far more positive. I see the connection between them for what it is. See its value. I am glad my son has such a strong attachment to his mother. It makes him whole. It will hopefully enable him to form balanced relationships when he is older. I think for my part, I have hit too many fences, I do not have the energy or capacity to succeed. I have all I need with the natural world, with my son, my dogs and the hawks that come my way.

  *

  Raising CC to his adult juvenile stage is easy. I understand him, can read his moods and know what he needs. Handling his reactions as we move towards hunting condition is another matter entirely. In comparison to a parent-reared hawk, he will need only a small amount of motivation to return. What worries me is that, when training an imprinted hawk, there is a distinct transference of power. The fear CC lacks has been redirected. I am the one who fears for the unexpected, for injury and for my physical being. The charming behaviour he has displayed over the last fifty-five days will disappear and not return for many months. When training starts in earnest, he will have a direct, dominant way of communicating displeasure. He will use extreme physicality: biting, footing, swiping, wing-whipping, flapping and seriously attacking me. There will be no discussion or warning. If my approach is wrong, I will be instantly chastised with force, and in these situations it is difficult to discern who is teaching whom. It is these reactions that make most falconers fearful of imprints, but this aggression is only a small part of the way CC will eventually communicate. His aggression will taper off the more he succeeds when hunting in the field. Until such time, I will just have to work through it, will have to deal with this particular phase of his learning until he begins to respect my company.

  *

  For the last twenty minutes my son and I have been having a discussion. It is now bor
dering on an argument.

  ‘You are basically too young.’

  ‘Well, I have seen an eighteen film before.’

  ‘That was an accident.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the second time you let me watch it.’

  ‘This is true, but that was also an accident.’

  ‘How can you accidentally watch a film? And it had swear words in it. Adults are supposed to be responsible.’

  ‘I know, don’t mention that to anyone. I didn’t know it was an eighteen. The bottom line is you’re too young, so Grand Theft Auto is out of the question. It’s too violent.’

  ‘You’ve played it.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m forty-three.’

  ‘I’ll download it.’

  ‘How will you pay for it?’

  ‘I’ve got money.’

  The discussion keeps on. He is like mercury. His ability to parry and joust my points is remarkable. I am caught between frustration and admiration. He intellectually and verbally punches well above his weight. The truth is, I really do not care one way or the other. He is perfectly capable of distinguishing between what is real and what is fake. Perfectly capable of dealing with the game’s content. I have every faith he will not pick up a baseball bat and beat a pensioner to death. The conversation has gently slid from logic and truth into a matter of principle. I notice myself regurgitating words I have heard in the past. It’s an odd feeling. I begin to fall into cliché. Begin to assert unjustifiable dominance. I catch myself saying things my father says, what every father says. I have finally turned into a universal father. It makes me laugh, but I also feel a slight twist of annoyance.

  Fully aware of my words and of my total abnegation of any type of individual responsibility, I simply say:

  ‘Look, ask your mother.’

  ‘I already did. She won’t let me have it.’

  He has been playing me as a soft touch all along.

  *

  I begin reducing CC’s food intake to one meal a day. In the build-up to his daily meal I walk him across the fields with the dogs; midway, he produces a large, tight casting. By the time we arrive home his screaming is so loud it bounces off the trees and walls of the cottage. He turns towards me and screams repeatedly into my face. His feet pulse down and grip so hard they squash the bones in my hand. Despite my thick leather glove, his central talon presses into the ball of my thumb with the same feeling as the blunt tip of a ballpoint pen pushed into a hand. He puffs up and starts to bully me. I weigh him. He grabs the scales and lifts them off the bench, then strikes out at the glove with his free foot. It takes five or ten minutes to get a consistent reading. He is almost at his top weight, nearly two pounds. I leave him another hour, letting the sun drop further down the sky. At dusk, I weigh him once more: he is the same weight, only now raging, screaming, faster, louder, longer, mantling low on the glove. He is telling me quite clearly that he is starving.

  He is lying.

  Normally, a hawk is called to the glove. With an angry two-pound imprint goshawk, this would be problematic. He may come off the glove and attempt to strike me, so I prepare a lure for his recall. Girl required the lure because she was frightened of me. I intend to use the lure because I am frightened of CC.

  I attach a creance to his swivel, place him on a perch, walk away, turn and quickly throw the lure to the floor away from me. CC reacts instantly and smashes it into the ground. Replicating his behaviour on the glove, he spreads his wings defensively, mantling the lure, screaming, trying to threaten me and push me away. The dogs get too close and he moves to attack them. They scuttle away. He rips into his food, screaming between mouthfuls. Crawling on my stomach, low and unthreatening, I reach in with my glove. This provokes no further anger and CC keeps feeding. I slip my bare right hand under the glove and delicately began stroking his feet with the tips of my fingers while he feeds. He looks up, pauses then returns to his meal. Ever so slowly, I remove my glove and reach in with both bare hands and gingerly begin breaking up his meal, feeding him with my fingers. I want to show that if I help him, he can feed easier. That I am not stealing his food, that he does not have to defensively protect his food. As I fiddle with the slippery meat, he stops, steps off the lure and on to my wrist. I freeze. CC’s feet tighten, the tips of his talons make a light indentation in the middle mass of blue veins. I suck in, hold my breath, feel the beat of my heart, expecting the searing pain and a trip to hospital. A relaxed ripple of feathers spreads over his body, then they tighten flat. He considers me for several seconds. In deferent submission, I turn my gaze to the floor. With unexpected softness, he steps off my arm and back on to the lure. I continue to tear up his meal. When he has finished he looks about, checking to see if he has missed anything. I back up and sit on my knees. Holding a chick leg in my gloved hand, I offer it to CC, who hops up off the lure and on to my glove. I am shaking with relief and excitement. It is an exhilarating first lesson and one that I’ve escaped without injury.

  Within a few days he is flying 200 yards and hitting the lure hard in a variety of locations. Each time he remains at the place it landed and feeds instantly. In building our routine, my behaviour remains constant and repetitive as I reach in and hand-feed him. The trust builds between us with each successful lesson. Like Boy, he is smart, and progress is quick. Watching him closely, noting his reactions, it is apparent he is ready for free flight.

  To fly CC free, he needs telemetry and a tail bell for location. Telemetry is attached using a spring clip. The spring clip is squeezed together and slipped inside a plastic backpack. To attach the backpack, two, thin Teflon ribbons are curled around the shoulders and chest of the hawk, pulled tight then sewn together at the front. It is a fiddly, tricky operation. CC needs to be hooded and another falconer needs to help. It takes Steve, Hollie and I nearly forty minutes to complete the task. We get it wrong, start to argue and bicker. We shout at each other. Hollie nearly bursts into tears. Likewise, throughout the process CC sits low, silent and angry on the glove. His wings hang down by his sides like a dead pheasant. As soon as our joint indignations are exhausted, I place him back on the perch in the garden and let him take a bath.

  In the morning I intend to fly him on the creance for the last time. When I approach him in the mews, he goes berserk. On the glove he rears up to full height, opens his wings wide, clamps down with deadly force and puffs his chest up and out. The feathers on his head form a broad crest up over his head and his eyes are bright and wide with alarm. He emits a long, relentless twittering. It is utterly disheartening. We have taken several steps back. The backpack fitting has caused a deep-set resentment which has clearly festered overnight. The speed of his sensitivity, how quickly CC remembers and displays his feelings, are remarkable. I understand his anger and the perceived inconsistency of my behaviour. I have gone from tender respect to horrendous heavy-handed abuse for no apparent reason. Steve tells me it would have been worse if he had not been hooded and seen me do it. The only cure is time and patience. For three days CC remains resolute in his distrust. It takes close contact and gentle stroking every ten minutes before we begin again and achieve free flight, and start hunting.

  *

  Rabbits

  It is impossible to explain concepts like patience, summertime heat, heavy cover or the abstract idea of ‘there is always tomorrow’ to a hawk. CC’s mind and body exist only in the present. We keep missing, or on some days do not see rabbits at all. As we fail I watch him coil tighter and tighter with restless rage, his instincts having no conduit for full expression, every fibre of his being is becoming frustrated. His screaming reaches at least eighty, ninety, a hundred decibels; he sounds like a rusted gate swinging endlessly backwards and forwards in the wind, or galvanized nails scraped across a blackboard. I am convinced that when I am not looking he purposely leans closer to my ear and screams as loudly as possible, telling me to get on with it. After he has been put away in the evenings, my ears continue to ring with a tinnitus-like eeeeeeee.

 
On the morning of the fourth day of failure I weigh CC and he is less than receptive. As usual his one foot clings viciously to the scales, the other is gripping my glove. The scales lift from the table and the leash and jesses become tangled. I open my glove to adjust them and CC lunges onto my belt. With overwhelming speed he drops the scales and attacks me, walking up my abdomen, chest, and shoulders, lunging and footing me as he goes. He stops just short of my face and neck.

  When flying and he misses a rabbit, and if I fail to produce the lure quickly enough, he strikes my shoulder or legs with the same level of determination he would have used if he had killed. My bare right hand takes most of the punishment and is deeply slashed and cut by his talons. My middle finger receives a heavy blow, and as infection sets in I am unable to bend it fully without stinging pain. My shoulder and upper left arm are covered in small pinprick dots where he has purposely missed the glove and gone for skin.

  In one instance he misses four rabbits in the space of ten minutes. On the final flight, he boomerangs back directly at my head. As he spins out to hit my face, I have to swat him out of the air as if he is a giant angry wasp. Later when his determination to attack is at its utmost and he has once again missed, he sweeps silently behind a hedge, flips over it and smashes into me with full force. There is total silence and I feel nothing. My brain protectively separating my mind and body, I know something is wrong but cannot feel it. I hear a weird squeaking sound, like a balloon being rubbed on wool. His talons sink into the skin at the top of my right shoulder. I turn to face him and I hear a deeper, popping, tearing sound as he sinks right into the muscles. I am hit by a sudden burning sensation. He tightens his grip to full strength and I rotate left then right, trying to escape. Each movement curls into the curve of his talons and his feet go deeper. I have to physically rip him out of the top of my arm removing cloth and a large gouge of flesh and throw him to the floor, followed by his full rations for the day. Feeling light headed, dizzy, and nauseous, I sit down beside him.