H is for Hawk

Hello,

Who has read H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald? I have a copy which I read a couple of weeks ago and while I enjoyed it, I think that the Radio Four play that she wrote 'The Falcon and the Hawk' was better, being sharper and more poignant.

The play particularly appealed to me as I too was a bird mad girl in the 1970s and there didn't seem to be many of us around to say the least!

Look forward to hearing what people think.

I have not, but I will see if it's available here in the US. If our public library doesn't have a copy, perhaps I can get copy through the ILL.

H is for Hawk is till on my TBR (ebook). Anybody else?

>3 Tess_W:

Thanks for the reminder. I'd forgotten about that. Had it some seven years and still haven't read it.

I read it. Didn't like it much. It's not really a book about birds at all. It's about a the author coming to terms with the loss of her father. There's a lot of muddled waffling comparing the experience TH White had of flying a Goshawk, compared to her own. But most of the book is about her and her grief and not about hawk training.

>5 reading_fox: Thanks for the info!

>1 Bowerbirds-Library:
>5 reading_fox:

For what goshawk information there is, does it appear accurate? It's on my TBR and I knew it wasn't primarily a birding book, but it will be good to know whether the birding info is misleading, or not.

>7 elenchus: Goshawks are so uncommon (I've never even seen one) and I've never attempted to train anything that I have no way of assessing it. I've flown hawks occasionally as a customer which is marvellous and I'd love to do again - taking a pair of Harris Hawks hunting in the countryside was amazing you really feel their skill and ability - but that's as far as I have the time/money/desire/ability to do. It's a huge commitment.

>8 reading_fox: I regularly heard a goshawk in the woods near my previous home but I never saw it. They're loud but surprisingly stealthy for a hawk of that size.

>8 reading_fox:, >9 spiralsheep:

I saw a gabar goshawk the other day, just a fleeting glimpse as it flew by me. First one I've ever seen.