What a rollercoaster of a read this was, every up and down experienced by Macdonald was also experienced by this reader, the further into madness she went the more intense I felt towards this bird, each time the bird flew I found my heart also about to explode with joy. When I was younger I developed an obsession with Osprey’s I wanted one more than anything else, I could easily imagine myself training it and popping to the shops with it on my fist….my parents got me two canaries instead which were a bugger to train to hunt. Before starting this book I was in two minds about whether I would like it, I love going to the local Hawk Conservancy (coincidentally this was where I purchased this book) and being able to see these beautiful birds up close but at the same time I feel guilty that I get this happiness at the expense of their freedom.

This book consists of three parts, the first part is about a woman who has lost her father and is dealing with the grief, next there is the same woman buying a Goshawk and training it and finally there is the man who inspired her, T. H. White in which we find out all about his life and his experiences with training his hawk. Reading about Macdonald’s father and how his death almost broke her was heart-breaking but her words about this man were wonderful and I loved reading about him, reading about the Goshawk (named Mabel) was mesmerising, the writing is so powerful the bird almost comes alive on the page. I found the parts about White hard going, this man was doing it all wrong and I had no real interest in him, I just wanted to get past those pages and get back to Mabel to see how she was getting on. But as the bond between Macdonald and Mabel started to grow and after Mabel starts to fly I found myself drawn more towards White, everything about him was so tragic and he was incredibly self destructive, the man may have had no idea about training his hawk but you soon realise it was his mistakes that has taught us so much about falconry today.

Macdonald’s love and attachment to Mabel is intense, her emotions feel so raw and I got quite emotional reading as she started to become feral, pulling away from the community and losing herself in the hawk. Mabel herself is a thing of beauty and seeing just how free she actually is made me feel much better about those trips to the Hawk Conservancy. Once you let the bird fly it is all up to her whether the bond with the human is more powerful than the lure of flying free and doing what she was born to be, any time she is released could be the day she says “see ya laterz”. A lot of these books try to show the animal’s human side but here that fails, the bird’s identity is just too strong and in fact it is the human that start’s to show their animal side…I could image myself running a mile if Macdonald was to burst through a hedge covered in blood chasing a rabbit out into the open.

This book was so good, one that will stick with me for a long time and one that will always come to mind each time I see a bird of prey. 100% recommend giving this one a go.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/03/28/h-is-for-hawk-by-helen-macdonald/