For my birthday, my lovely and thoughtful daughter presented me with a copy of the book As the falcon her bells by Phillip Glasier. I had seen a copy of the book in a library, and was immediately intrigued by it. Alison tracked it down from a bookseller in the UK. Glasier was a noted authority on falconry, and this book is a collection of essays about his various forays into the British countryside and his experiences with his beloved birds of prey. The title of the book comes from As You Like It, Act III, Scene iii: "As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires."
A quote from the book:
"(the falcon) ... turns suddenly, with effortless grace, stopping earthwards. Her wings nearly closed, she hurtles down, the gap between falcon and grouse closing with astonishing rapidity. If you are close enough to hear it, the wind tears through her pinions, making a rushing sound so curious that once heard it is rarely forgotten. Her bells, pushed against her legs, cannot ring, but you can hear the air whining through the slots in them."
You gotta love a book that describes a sighting this way: "I looked along the shoreline, and there was a whacking great eagle poking about among the rocks."
No comments:
Post a Comment