Tom Cruise and the art of falconry

Last week, the Hollywood team making the latest Mission Impossible film was desperate to clear Trafalgar Square of its superabundant pigeons for a scene involving its star, Tom Cruise. But it was not an ultrasonic laser in Ethan Hunt’s high-tech kitbag that did the trick. What you apparently need to rid central London of its pesky birds is an artform dating back 3,000 years.

The producers had to resort to falconers to get the job done. These devotees of an ancient art, who have also performed sterling service recently for administrators at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster, let loose a ‘cast’ of red-tailed hawks, complete with bells and jesses, and sent the pigeons packing.

The Sun made a splash on these old-style methods, but actually it is one of falconry’s more modest contributions to the cultural life of the capital. Hunting with birds of prey arrived in Britain from Asia in about ad 900.