Lost bird of the wilderness
Evelyn Jo11 GYRFALCON by Emma Ford John Murray, £65, pp. 190 Emma Ford, who confesses that she is bewitched by the gyr, has written a paean about this the largest of all falcons, which is even faster than our native peregrine. Unfortunately, we have almost no chance of seeing a gyr in Britain as the last authen- tic sighting occurred at Orford, Suffolk in 1867.
The gyr favours the most inhospitable terrain and its plumage varies accordingly: white in Alaska, Greenland and eastern Siberia, predominantly grey in Iceland and greyish-blue in Norway.
A chapter entitled 'The Gyrfalcon in Art and Literature' contains the astonishing assertion that 'our museums and galleries are brimming with paintings of the gyr- falcon', but then laments that it is hard 'to find the gyr in true works of literature'. The author tries to remedy this by unearthing a number of sources including In Search of the Gyr-Falcon (1938) by Ernest Vesey who courageously scaled pre- cipitous heights in search of nests despite having a gammy leg, only one arm and hav- ing lost an eye, aged 12, 'in an attempt to remove the squeak from his sister's doll with a pair of scissors'.
Further chapters describe how gyrs adapt to Arctic conditions (among other means their feathers have 'insulative properties'); their breeding habits; what they eat — mainly ptarmigan, sage-grouse and lem- mings; and how they hunt — here it is sur- prising to learn that they can hover like a kestrel.
The rest of the book concentrates on fal- conry, gyrs having been most prized for this sport since the 12th century. King John, for instance, killed nine cranes with his gyrs one day in Lincolnshire in 1212; later, Ivan the Terrible sent a present of white gyrs to Henry VIII's daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth.
Not surprisingly, in our times, oil-rich sheikhs in the Middle East covet gyrs where a single bird can fetch up to $50,000. But the birds do not transplant easily from their cold, sterile environment and few live long before succumbing to 'bumble-foot', 'frounce' or 'aspergillosis', the most preva- lent diseases that afflict gyrs. Thus the fal- con population was under threat, a situation exacerbated by the near extinc- tion of peregrines in the 1950s and '60s in Europe and North America due to the reckless use of pesticides. Fortunately, since then, strict protection laws, the cre- ation of nature reserves and an active breeding programme, mostly in the USA and Germany, have reversed this trend. Furthermore, crossing gyrs with peregrines produced a hybrid less vulnera- ble to disease than pure gyrs and these have proved immensely popular wherever falconry is practised, particularly in the Gulf States. The future, therefore, for both falcons and falconry looks reasonably optimistic.
This book is as handsomely produced as its subject deserves, illustrated by outstand- ing photographs which show the birds rev- elling in their breathtaking mastery of the air, attaining speeds of over 200 miles an hour as they swoop on their prey. Antony Rhodes and Andrew Ellis have been com- missioned to provide 56 paintings which further embellish the book, so that, despite its hefty price, it may well fulfil the blurb's prediction that it 'will become a collector's volume'.
'Female gyr on chz4ke mallatzl. by Andivw
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