Feathered friends

So, what do we think of falconry?

Finally, I have listened to H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. It's the story of a grieving daughter who comes back to life through training a goshawk.

To be honest, I felt a little unsympathetic - I mean, MacDonald seemed to me to be fortunate: she'd had a good childhood! Maybe that makes the grief worse, though. And then I have these concerns about captive birds - though the life of her hawk, Mabel, was far less constrained than the life of my cats. I have concerns about feeding captive predators... but then, I have cats.

Still, I have enjoyed it and I like the writing. MacDonald goes deeply into T. H .White's book about training a goshawk - and that too is fascinating. He is an intriguing character - he wrote The Once and Future King - who had an appalling childhood and a very mixed up mentality. He was pretty shit at hawk training... and I guess it's just as well I am unlikely to try it as I fear I would be more like White than MacDonald.

Mabel is incredible. She plays with crushed paper and peers through paper telescopes. MacDonald, who had been flying hawks for years, had never known they could be playful. I wonder how often they get the chance?

As I was looking up a review for her book, I saw an article about MacDonald that made me keen to read her next book and the one that hopefully will be published in the next year. I appreciate the way she talks about the environmental crisis.

As for my feathered friends, the horrible fun fair has been in the park so I have not seen a great deal of the crows. A baby squirrel has been eating the Unbraves food. Twice, I saw both Divines. And for a few days there has been a kestrel in the park. A brilliant golden splash in the green. The buzzard returned, to be cawed at nervously by crows again, and kites fly over. The garden birds are still eating as much food as I put out.

Out at the copse, I heard calls that I thought were raven calls. They can't be, I thought. But I stood, looking and listening. A flock of black shapes flew above me - ten... and another and another.... crows, surely, despite the croaking caws. They flew above me to the little circular spinney, riding up on the air that rises over the trees. They circled and then returned, one surfing down the air, closing his wings and spinning 360 degrees as he flew, before climbing back about the copse.

I stood there open-mouthed. 12 of them? Taking that short, noisy, playful flight? A creche outing, maybe? A school trip?

It's not a hawk flying to my glove. It's not the intimacy of a life shared, but it's something.