Biting Back

by Martin Hollinshead

Imagine a football sent racing between the posts, tearing through the net, and ending up bouncing off supporters and seats, not knowing where to settle. This is what the Harris’ has done to falconry. Before the Harris’, falconry followed certain rules. There had been linesmen, a referee – an order established over thousands of years. OK, there had been the odd adjustment and the game had been widened and altered slightly, but the rulebook had never needed rewriting. Then onto the pitch bounced the cocky New World transfer, head high and strutting just slightly. It had a team spirit that made the rest of the players look like loners, and a level of intelligence that sent them creeping back to kindergarten. And it had ability: the speed, the footwork – the sheer audacious boldness! The ref was red-faced and fumbling for his rulebook. But it was too late. Somewhere between scoring the first and tenth goal, the Harris’ grabbed it from his hands and tore it into a thousand pieces. And as the shreds settled on the turf, one thing was sure, falconry would never be the same again.

The Harris’ offers a kind of falconry that’s difficult to nail down – impossible maybe. This bird is a treasure chest of fabulous experiences just ready to explode into the countryside. It knows no limitations. It’s an anytime, anywhere, any weather, any quarry, any flight style hawk. It can make the impossible possible. It should have absolutely no critics. But it does.

UK falconry is currently a two-camp battle zone: those who fly Harris’ hawks, and those who despise them. And there doesn’t appear much room for fence-sitting, with those who run the Despise Camp demanding ‘you’re either with us or against us.’ The level of anger felt about the Harris’ is astonishing. The insults, the allegations, the outrageous statements – it’s a never-ending bombardment! And the odd thing is, most of the critics don’t really know why they detest the bird so. It’s like some group trance, heads nodding in agreement: every falconer at camp hates the Harris’ – it’s just a fact. This vagueness makes it difficult for the Harris’ devotee to put a counter argument; there’s not much to aim at! Nevertheless, there are a few regularly used missiles that action can be taken against.

It’s Too Easy

Well, if too easy means a bird that flies through the basics, grasping the rudiments with a swiftness that would make Lassie jealous, then maybe the Harris’ is easy. But who would rather tango back and forth with a brainless idiot? And if too easy means that the less experienced falconer can make the odd blunder and get away with it – be given, or his bird be given, a second chance – then it’s hands up time again. And maybe we would have to tick the yes box again if pushed about whether or not all of this means that the novice might take a little too much for granted regarding hawk management. Yes, yes, yes. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

It’s a Beginner’s Bird

Yes, the Harris’ has become the favourite of the novice in Britain. But when did beginner’s hawk mean valueless. Tell some of the Americans flying the 'beginner’s' redtail or American kestrel about how valueless their sport is – then duck!

With the beginner’s bird attack the critics are really playing dirty. This isn’t just getting stuck into the Harris’, it’s targeting the sports most vulnerable and most valuable asset – new blood. How dare they put the newcomer down in this way. Each time a novice whispers that he only flies a Harris’, one of the Despise Camp should be taken out and thrashed with a lure!

The Poacher’s Bird!

It is true that before the Harris’ you didn’t get a lot of poaching in falconry. And it is true that if the Harris’ weren’t so biddable, some of these poachers, creeping into places they shouldn’t, would find it difficult to function. But blaming the bird for this is a little like wanting to ban off road vehicles because some frustrated office worker exercises his new toy where he shouldn’t.

Not Very Exciting

Which Harris’ are we talking about? The Harris’ has always come in two versions. It can be the 'normal' bird doing all the normal things, being handled by the falconer who’s happy with normal, knows nothing but normal. It will perform back and forth like a clockwork mouse all day. This is perhaps the bird’s more frequently seen face.

But there’s another Harris’, the one from the football field. This bird longs to leave Miss Normal at home. She wants to dress to shock and set the town alight. She’s a genie in a bottle, just waiting for the right falconer to come along. She wants a falconer who has longed for her the way she has for him, a falconer of deep experience who knows how to get inside her head, under her skin, and go rushing through her veins, revving her up so much she’s ready to explode. But he’ll need to be a renegade, be ready to treat the rulebook the way she has. And this special falconer will be so perceptive, will immediately sense her urging and pushing – her whisper that together they can conquer the world. And he’ll be ready to let it take him, closing his eyes to go all 'Luke Skywalkery' so that he can feel the force. It’s a type of falconry the set-in-concrete critic will never know.

Now, fasten your seatbelt and pull it tight. It’ll need to be tight because we’re on a mountainside in a gale so strong great chunks of turf are being torn away. Now look up – no, straight up – and wipe the stream of tears away. High above – really high – is a little black dot, battling the storm and ready to falcon-stoop at anything that moves. Blink. Now we’re on a flat arable field, with the same bird riding the glove as still as stone but so electrified with anticipation you can feel the energy being sucked from you. Then WHAM! And 50,000 volts is racing over the field locked onto a target as big as a car. You’re with her, running, praying, begging – urging her on – all the time an invisible power cable binding you to her and draining your emotions with the massive challenge she is taking on. Harris’ falconry not exciting? Get real!

Free Flight – Just Flights From Trees?

For some reason the critics object to the Harris’ hawkers’ use of free-flight hawking. Like everything else to do with the Harris’, they just don’t understand it. They see it in the simplest terms: bird sits in tree and gets easy option. The real experience is much more. Lots of birds fly from trees, lots of birds will follow in expectation of quarry being found – and lots of birds will also become dangerously independent this way. With the Harris’ it’s totally different. The Harris’ doesn’t just want the quarry, it wants the team experience. Just look at in the field, whether in the woods or soaring over open ground, it’s constantly watching, calculating, and reading its partner. There’s a weird kind of telepathy going on: it knows what he’s going to do before he does it. It always knows where it has to be, and if this means fighting a gale or balancing on the tip of a needle, then that’s what happens. And all the while its brain is whizzing through a million zillion options and emergency plans. And for the falconer it’s the same: thinking, watching, constantly fretting – worrying about making the wrong move and sending the wrong message.

You don’t just fly a Harris’, you drive, push, motivate and feed off each other, all the while that power cable keeping you both humming with current. It’s a potent weapon and one that finds strength in adversity: when things are at their blackest, when everything is set against success, the team digs deeper still and MAKES it happen. It’s this 'thing' that beats those car-sized hares and that wild mountain weather. It is that promise: it will conquer the world.

‘Too Easy’ Revisited

Let’s just back track to the topic of ‘Too Easy’. Well, thank goodness those basics are flown through for there’s enough stuff beyond them to keep the average falconer busy for about four lifetimes. The truth is, you can put as much or as little in as you want. But the 'ready to rock' Harris' – the bird that will roll the enemy’s camp flat – is achieved with only the deepest skill and feeling. This bird costs, it really costs. For giving everything, this Harris’ demands everything. It demands you see it as the irreplaceable gift it is. It demands that you really serve it, yes, get down on your knees and serve.

For this bird, only perfection will do. Perfection with handling (she requires such a gentle hand). Perfection with lures, rewards, kills, pickups (oh those pickups, perfection doesn’t nearly describe how good you have to be!). Perfection when judging the number of kills to go for – or not. And she demands that if you even suspect you might have somehow caused insult, the worry keeps you awake at night. Truly, there isn’t a bird in the sport that requires more: more attention to detail, more thought, more consideration – just more of everything.

Something Else Maybe?

So we’ve looked at most of the stuff normally fired at the Harris’, and even if we went back and examined it all again, it still wouldn’t amount to a suitable counter argument. Why? Well, maybe there’s a bit more to all this than practical issues. Let’s chew on two final topics, both of which take us back to that group trance thing, with heads constantly nodding uniformly in agreement. First up, prestige. The 'nodders' want to conform, want to please, want to belong – and they desperately want to impress, or at least feel they have attained some kind of higher station. This is something the Harris’ can never help them with. The Harris’ is common, everyday, everyman – everywhere! You don’t gain points in the status stakes with a Harris’.

But the biggest problem in the Despise Camp is fear. Deep down they are frightened of the Harris’. The Harris’ challenges their established, we-want-to-remain-topdog club. They’ve always had the biggest gun – the mighty gos. The gos has history, status. It’s like some natural wonder: it has always been, it will always be. Not any more. Superbird’s in town and the have flown into a defensive rage.

OR...

Of course I could have this whole argument wrong. The Harris’ might just be an uninspiring, undemanding bird that can be flown by anybody, anywhere, contributing nothing and slowly eroding the skills of hawk management.

No. I was right first time.

BACK TO ARTICLES