H Is For Hawk

It is a truism among falconers that a trainer must never sentimentalize a bird of prey. Predators such as hawks are awe-inspiring in their killing efficiency, and as such, hawks in the wild are solitary animals. They stay close to their trainers not out of affection or empathy, but solely because the trainer becomes an easy source of food; trainers who come to view their hawks as affectionate pets are unprofessional. However, this opens the way for a different sort of misinterpretation of the hawk’s purpose. Just as hawks are not affectionate, neither are they representative of a universal brutality running through the course of the natural world. Too many falconers fall into the allure of becoming hawklike themselves, and of using hawks to make their own emotional worlds spare and efficient.

During a crucial moment in the narrative, the director of the British Falconers Club shows MacDonald a secret. It is a taxidermized hawk, presented by Herman Gӧring (director of the Nazi Luftwaffe) to another falconer as a gift. Both MacDonald and her colleague react in horror to the gift, but its attachment to Nazism resonates with the task of falconry. Falconers from