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The Falcon and the Hawk

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

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The Falcon and the Hawk

By: Helen Macdonald
Narrated by: David Birrell, Gemma Lawrence, Helen Macdonald
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About this listen

Helen Macdonald is a falconer and poet. She keeps a goshawk called Mabel. As a child she fell in love with a rare book of intense nature writing, J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, which records a winter watching wild peregrines on the Essex coast. Her new play brings her birds and his together. Baker tramps the bleak coastal marshes scanning the skies for fleeting moments of bloody drama as a peregrine stoops at immense speed after a plover or a pigeon.

Helen woos her captive-bred goshawk in her spare bedroom - acclimatising it to human noise and human movement. Baker crouches over a half-dead pigeon and finishes it off for the wild falcon; Helen walks the city street with a goshawk on her fist. Their stories begin to fly closer to one another.

Starring David Birrell as J. A. Baker, Gemma Lawrence as Young Helen and Helen Macdonald as herself. Part recorded on location at The Bird of Prey Centre in Newent, Gloucestershire. Producer: Tim Dee.

©2012 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2012 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd Entertainment & Performing Arts
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What a brilliant broadcast. Even better for one who enjoys seeing the Raptors flying in the Highlands of Scotlands. Around the Inverness countryside, we see Owls, buzzards, and all members of the crow family. Go west to the Western Isles and see the Sea Eagle and Golden Eagle, plenty of Buzzards, especially when lambing season starts followed by nesting periods even road kills.

Great listen and education for t6hosse waning to learn where and how to watch these magnificent birds.

I had a Spaarrrow Halk sitting on a rotting tree post less than 10 feet from me, as I had been sitting in garden 20 feet from the bird feeder! Hawk sat waiting till feeder house, and multiple hanging feeders were full of over 20 tree sparrows, and in he came can catch one as he swooped up from below and caught one when they took off in a panic. Nature at its best.

I had over 20 nests in my long 100+-year-old hedge including 2 Robin nests 4 Blackbird and others in trees along the end of open ground. All used various types of feeders. Halk (male and female) must have been nesting nearby, as he was frequent visitor during fledging period.

I had expected a boring radio broadcast.

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