Wine, Cheese and Falconry

I am intrigued by all things at the extreme high end of opulence. Anything ranging from the attainable interests in fine food & drink and travel to the more inaccesible levels of wealth that allow for personal jets, private islands, 100+ foot yachts, obscure breeds of dogs and cats and the like. Who are these people that look through the Robb Report as casually as they would peruse a Boot's circular? In this world a helicopter is just a whirlybird, a convenient mode of transport. Money is not an object to be bothered by, just an instrument in a transaction, often times never even seen or exchanged. The activities and hobbies at this stratospheric height are often so obscure that the average bloke would likely not know the difference between rocking the casbah and snorting blow off of a prostitutes bare breasts. Intriguing.

Earlier today I was driving through a rough section north of town where I saw a large bird in the middle of the street straight in front of me. This bird as I got closer appeared quite large and seemed to have something in it's talons. I was about 10 feet away when it flew off with a puff of feathers in its wake, at which point I realized this was in fact a falcon with a city pigeon in it's grasp. I was quite surpised to see such a site in an urban setting of this nature.

This experience did however, like many things do, send my mind into a daydream where I was pondering one of my other interests, Falconry. I particularly like those tiny little hats. Anyway, I have these pictures in my head of stately settings in the English countryside, wearing the appropriately garish garb and sporting a massive rawhide sleeve upon which the most noble of raptors, the Peregrine Falcon, is perched. I envision a hunt where I, with my most direct and yet borderline telepathic commands, send this regal beast into the evening sky, bound on its quest to do my bidding and bring me some sort of meat in the shape of a rabbit or other unidentified fowl. While this hunt is taking place my mates and I would be sipping 60 year old bordeauxs and discussing some merger or acquisition or maybe just about chicks.

This brought me square back to the dead pigeon being carried through the grey March sky in the present. I wondered, how did this come to be? Could this really just be a most unlikely sighting that I was a witness to or was there something else behind this? I recalled an article I read several months back which was about an issue plaguing the inhabitants of several larger, lower income cities. It seems that locals of these environs are beginning to feed on the local fauna (read pigeons, squirrels and raccoons). These animals, being free (like you dont have to pay for them) and seemingly harmless to what are often immigrants from far off lands, are actually quite deadly, being full of the toxins and diseases that an urban environment can create.

So again, my mind adrift, I had this funny vision of the Urban Falconer. I pictured a squatter getting on in years, say about 60, who over time had caught and somehow trained a Falcon. Perhaps he came from an aristocratic family in Eton, attended boarding schools and the like, but decided to forego university and instead chose to follow a different path...a young lady. Maybe this was an unreciprocated love, perhaps she was a kept woman, only to be loved from afar evetually driving the young squire mad. Our mate, let's call him Giles, roamed the darkest corners of London eating and sleeping where he could,emotionally spiraling downward until he reached the point of no return.

Having grown accustomed to this living situation, Giles was forced to rely on his instincts and a modified version of his upbringing's teachings. He eventually stumbled upon a wounded young Falcon when searching through some brush beneath a tree in Leicester Square. Having a faint recollection of his Falconry lessons as a young lad, he held on to this young fowl and eventually nursed it to health. Giles finally had a new, loyal companion and a yearning desire to train this rare bird. I pictured the pair in Regent's Park, practicing their hunting techniques on unsuspecting rodents. Eventually Giles's training of the bird would be complete. No longer would he have to beg for a few quid for some chips or a pint of lager. The Falcon would bring him fresh prey, which he'd eat with some old cheese and a cheap bottle of wine, recounting the splendor of days long past. Regal indeed.

Of course this could have just been a random Falcon that had simply made it's way into city limits through the push of the everexpanding suburbs and forced to dine on the local feathered vermin. I suppose it's a good thing I actually had my eyes on the road at that moment, otherwise I likely would have run over both the Faclon and it's catch, seeing just the explosion of down in my mirror as I passed. A less than regal end to say the least.