A goshawk is the falconer’s hard case — bigger, faster, and less forgiving than a falcon, with a reputation for being impossible to keep steady. Macdonald had been a falconer since childhood, and she bought one off a quay in Scotland for £800, in a cardboard box, and named her Mabel. Then she took her home and did it the old way: Sitting with the bird in a darkened room for hours, hand-feeding her, walking her through crowds, letting her out on a long line, and finally free over the fields around Cambridge. The book runs alongside T.H. White, who wrote The Once and Future King and also tried to train a goshawk in 1936 and made a mess of it. Macdonald writes what a hawk actually sees, and it will change how you look at a hedge.
H is for Hawk