Call number
598.9 MON
Collection
Publication
Atria Books (2022), 96 pages
Description
"When Sy Montgomery went to spend a day at falconer Nancy Cowan's farm, home to a dozen magnificent birds of prey, it was the start of a deep love affair. Nancy allowed her to work with Jazz, a feisty, four-year-old, female Harris's hawk with a wingspan of more than four feet. Not a pet, Jazz was a fierce predator with talons that could pierce skin and bone and yet, she was willing to work with a human to hunt. From the first moment Jazz swept down from a tree and landed on Sy's leather gloved fist, Sy fell under the hawk's magnetic spell. Over the next few years, Sy spent more time with these magnificent creatures, getting to know their extraordinary abilities and instincts. They are deeply emotional animals, quick to show anger and frustration, and can hold a grudge for years. But they are also loyal and intensely aware of their surroundings. In this mesmerizing account, featuring sixteen pages of gorgeous color photographs, Sy passionately and vividly reveals the wonderous world of hawks and what they can teach us about nature, life, and love."--Publisher's website.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member JulieStielstra
Similar to her previous The Hummingbird's Gift, Montgomery has repackaged a chapter from her 2010 collection Birdology into a small, separate book. I'm thinking the audience for this one might be a bit different. I definitely wouldn't buy it for my elderly hummingbird-loving mother.
In birdwatching,
In this book, Montgomery explores this relationship (such as it is) through her fascinated, primal, bewildering desire to hunt with hawks. Herself a vegetarian and thoughtful observer and lover of animals wild and domestic, she is utterly hooked by the untameable ferity of these birds: "I wanted to touch these birds’ fine, ancient wildness, this pure savagery bereft of evil." She signs on for lessons with a local falconer, who reminds her: "“If you think in terms of rewards and punishments, you’re not thinking partnership. They don’t serve us. We serve them.” Another expert puts it this way: "You train a hawk to accept you as her servant.” Montgomery goes on to muse about this special kind of love she chooses to label agape: "For a human to love without expecting love in return is hugely liberating. To leave the self out of love is like escaping the grip of gravity. It is to grow wings. It opens up the sky." To which I would reply: does this selfless love include taking a wild bird out of its natural environment, shutting it up in a small building, wearing a hood that blinds it and jesses to tether it? So that you may take it out at your pleasure, when you're sure it's hungry enough, in order to admire its killing power as a spectator? When I can grow those same emotional wings under that same open sky while simply watching the iridescent sheen and graceful curves of a flock of ibis rise above a marsh? "Oddly," says Montgomery's mentor, "[some] birdwatchers consider [falconry] a form of slavery." Um, yes.
Hawks are glorious, beautiful, regal creatures, soaring overhead, perusing the horizon from a tree or a telephone pole, tilting and gliding over an open field on the hunt. The book gives us a vivid look at several of them: their power, their speed, their incredible vision, their minds that are barely minds at all, they are such perfectly instinctual creatures. They are also dangerous and unpredictable, even in the hands of a talented falconer - shrieking, flapping, biting, drawing blood and slashing tendon and bone. Montgomery makes much of their tempers: they seem to evince much anger, fury, rage, violence. But how do we know? Are they naturally angry animals? Or is it their captivity and the thwarting of their deep and irresistible natural urges and needs that make them so?
What troubles me most about the allure of raptors, especially in the form of falconry, is how easily it seems to rouse a bloodlust in the people around them. Montgomery does struggle with this: "I’m sorry that Nancy has been bitten and I’m distressed that the woodcock has been killed, somehow, in the presence of these birds, blood and death are not repulsive. I feel myself being drawn to a mind wholly unlike my own. What is happening to me?" A chicken drumstick on her plate would make her feel sick; and ultimately, she decides not to acquire her own hawk - partly the demands of work and care, and partly because the hawk would unquestionably kill all her chickens, whom she loves (and does not eat).
This book may make some readers uncomfortable, and perhaps that is its best value. It stirs up ambivalence, and she is honest. She suggests that hunting - done ethically - is preferable to the horrors of factory farming. Hawks are hawks. They have every right to be on this earth, and to make their living as hawks do. What disturbs me is the way humans are driven to capture, possess, and control these wild creatures because of their killing power, their apparently violent characters, and their deadliness. They may say they are the servant to the hawk, but it seems that the human's deliberately cultivated "servitude" is ultimately twisted into - yet again - the dominance of human over wild creature.
* I thank NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review *
In birdwatching,
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people tend to pick out certain groups of birds they especially love, study, seek out, and admire - or even get a little obsessed by. For me, it's woodpeckers. And sparrows. And nice big wading birds that stand out there in the open and let me stare at them. Some people go nuts for gulls, in their endless and subtle gradations of plumages; others wait all year for the spring warblers to cavort through the upper branches, where first you can't see them and then they disappear. And for a lot of people, it's raptors: hawks, falcons, ospreys, eagles. And among those are the falconers, the people who keep these mighty killing machines in sheds or pens, and escort them out on hunts with pocketfuls of dismembered pigeons or chicks to lure them back with. Some birders say these folks have "gone over to the dark side." One woman who had worked with a Red-Tailed Hawk for a year or so said to me, "It's like the most pathological of relationships: you adore, love, and serve that bird with all your heart, and they don't give a shit about you."In this book, Montgomery explores this relationship (such as it is) through her fascinated, primal, bewildering desire to hunt with hawks. Herself a vegetarian and thoughtful observer and lover of animals wild and domestic, she is utterly hooked by the untameable ferity of these birds: "I wanted to touch these birds’ fine, ancient wildness, this pure savagery bereft of evil." She signs on for lessons with a local falconer, who reminds her: "“If you think in terms of rewards and punishments, you’re not thinking partnership. They don’t serve us. We serve them.” Another expert puts it this way: "You train a hawk to accept you as her servant.” Montgomery goes on to muse about this special kind of love she chooses to label agape: "For a human to love without expecting love in return is hugely liberating. To leave the self out of love is like escaping the grip of gravity. It is to grow wings. It opens up the sky." To which I would reply: does this selfless love include taking a wild bird out of its natural environment, shutting it up in a small building, wearing a hood that blinds it and jesses to tether it? So that you may take it out at your pleasure, when you're sure it's hungry enough, in order to admire its killing power as a spectator? When I can grow those same emotional wings under that same open sky while simply watching the iridescent sheen and graceful curves of a flock of ibis rise above a marsh? "Oddly," says Montgomery's mentor, "[some] birdwatchers consider [falconry] a form of slavery." Um, yes.
Hawks are glorious, beautiful, regal creatures, soaring overhead, perusing the horizon from a tree or a telephone pole, tilting and gliding over an open field on the hunt. The book gives us a vivid look at several of them: their power, their speed, their incredible vision, their minds that are barely minds at all, they are such perfectly instinctual creatures. They are also dangerous and unpredictable, even in the hands of a talented falconer - shrieking, flapping, biting, drawing blood and slashing tendon and bone. Montgomery makes much of their tempers: they seem to evince much anger, fury, rage, violence. But how do we know? Are they naturally angry animals? Or is it their captivity and the thwarting of their deep and irresistible natural urges and needs that make them so?
What troubles me most about the allure of raptors, especially in the form of falconry, is how easily it seems to rouse a bloodlust in the people around them. Montgomery does struggle with this: "I’m sorry that Nancy has been bitten and I’m distressed that the woodcock has been killed, somehow, in the presence of these birds, blood and death are not repulsive. I feel myself being drawn to a mind wholly unlike my own. What is happening to me?" A chicken drumstick on her plate would make her feel sick; and ultimately, she decides not to acquire her own hawk - partly the demands of work and care, and partly because the hawk would unquestionably kill all her chickens, whom she loves (and does not eat).
This book may make some readers uncomfortable, and perhaps that is its best value. It stirs up ambivalence, and she is honest. She suggests that hunting - done ethically - is preferable to the horrors of factory farming. Hawks are hawks. They have every right to be on this earth, and to make their living as hawks do. What disturbs me is the way humans are driven to capture, possess, and control these wild creatures because of their killing power, their apparently violent characters, and their deadliness. They may say they are the servant to the hawk, but it seems that the human's deliberately cultivated "servitude" is ultimately twisted into - yet again - the dominance of human over wild creature.
* I thank NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review *
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LibraryThing member phoenixcomet
A wonderfully short book with beautiful photos of birds of prey and an uncomfortable discussion about falconry which is a sport not for the faint of heart. It's also beautifully written and expresses how as the falconer you are always second to the hawk, perhaps they will accept you to work with
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them, but you are never training them, never master of them, but always subservient. To work with a hawk is to encounter agape, true unconditional love of giving to another and not necessarily receiving anything in return. Show Less
LibraryThing member drmom62
Interesting & educational but the reader annoys me. Apparently the author reads the book so I guess the voice of the book also bothers me
LibraryThing member drmom62
Interesting & educational but the reader annoys me. Apparently the author reads the book so I guess the voice of the book also bothers me
LibraryThing member eduscapes
Excerpted from a longer article:
Timely Take-aways for Life-long Learning: Bird Species
From eagles and hawks to pelicans and owls, several new works of nonfiction for adults examine the lives of specific bird species. Along the way, they discuss the importance of conservation and strategies being
...
The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty
Sy Montgomery, 2022, Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Themes: Nature, Animals, Birds, Hawk
Combining anecdotes from his personal experiences with hawks with fascinating insights into their life and behavior, Montgomery celebrates this magnificent predator through an engaging narrative and sixteen pages of color photographs.
Take-aways: Teachers will find useful examples about falconry and raptor behavior to weave into the life science curriculum.
...
Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lam
Timely Take-aways for Life-long Learning: Bird Species
From eagles and hawks to pelicans and owls, several new works of nonfiction for adults examine the lives of specific bird species. Along the way, they discuss the importance of conservation and strategies being
Show More
use to save these beloved species....
The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty
Sy Montgomery, 2022, Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Themes: Nature, Animals, Birds, Hawk
Combining anecdotes from his personal experiences with hawks with fascinating insights into their life and behavior, Montgomery celebrates this magnificent predator through an engaging narrative and sixteen pages of color photographs.
Take-aways: Teachers will find useful examples about falconry and raptor behavior to weave into the life science curriculum.
...
Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lam
Show Less
Pages
96
ISBN
1668001969 / 9781668001967