Is it the feathers that do the trick? The severely truculent expressions on their faces? Or is it their ancient origins? Or the places where they live?
Whatever their secret, birds of prey have exercised an extraordinary hold on human beings for tens of thousands of years. In the bad old days, their fans ranged from ancient Teutonic kings to Hitler’s right-hand-man Hermann Göring. Today, it seems to be artistic types and country-lovers who keep the flag flying. Or, do I mean keep the tail feathers fluttering?
In this exhilaratingly honest and passionately broadminded book, the poet and Cambridge academic Helen Macdonald combines her ‘sorry story’ of hawk addiction with the similar trials and tribulations suffered by the great T.H. White, whose love-hate relationship with his own poor bird is fascinatingly recorded in his book The Goshawk, first published in 1951.
White and Macdonald have much in common.
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