A tiny point in the clear blue sky? A mote of dust in the eye? Was it moving?
Moving indeed and rapidly increasing in size. The point resolved itself into a dark shape plummeting down from the sky. As whatever it was came down in total silence, it became a recognizable shape — a streamlined raptor in full attack. It sped downward toward the grassy earth at a speed guaranteed to smash it into lifelessness when, with an insouciant precision, its wings suddenly flared open with a soft whoosh. Wheeling sharply on a curved wing tip, talons extended, the falcon snatched the circling prey from the air.
For a moment there was utter silence as several hundred people came to terms with the natural beauty and violence epitomized in the precision of the strike, the beauty of the beast, the rightness of the kill. The peregrine falcon, now grounded, was completely absorbed in tearing its prey to pieces. With an audible sigh in the still afternoon air, the onlookers exhaled as one and a ripple of applause, swelling to a crescendo, flowed across the arena. The peregrine exemplified the inherent contradiction that sustains country sports in England. Criticized by the urban majority as a violent blood-sport, when they visit the annual Game Fair — a showcase for country sports that is in a different rural setting each year— they have to reconcile nature with nurture. If they want the countryside to be maintained by those who live in it, then some of the realities of nature are part of the deal.
Each year since 1958, the Game Fair has been held in the grounds of one of the great houses of England or Scotland. It has brought together many thousands of people bound by their interest in country life and country pursuits. These pursuits range from the expensive — grouse shooting in Scotland or salmon fishing in Alaska — to the truly bizarre. Ferret racing has proved to be a popular entertainment and it is quite usual to spot groups of serious looking ladies, deep in conversation about ferret food, with a couple of the creatures draped about their necks or even peeking over the tops of their jumpers. No detail is overlooked — even to a creche for visiting dogs, complete with snooze-baskets and attentive hound-sitters.
The underlying contradiction is perhaps best seen in the name of the fair’s major and founding exhibitor. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation encourages both the shooting and conservation sides of rural English life. To justify the sport, they simply point out that the rural environment has to be maintained to a high standard. It sounds at first like a specious argument.
However, Dr. David Bellamy, a renowned environmentalist, naturalist and anti-blood sports campaigner, has looked carefully at the argument. He admitted, albeit a little shamefacedly, that certainly in the case of pheasant shooting — and probably across the board — it was true. At the same time, grouse don’t breed well on unkempt moors; salmon won’t spawn in polluted rivers and in general, the extensive and expensive efforts by landowners to maintain the environment is of both national and commercial benefit. The price is blood sports. Between those either for or against it, the arguments rumble on.
The result of the addiction to country sports is the Game Fair and the chance for the public to be introduced both to the technology of pursuing, blasting or hooking animals for sport and to some of the characters involved. From across the land, ghillies and gamekeepers swap tales of fly-tying and pheasant rearing with stockbrokers and bus drivers. The community of country sportsmen knows no social distinctions — activity in the countryside and the esoteric intricacies of sport is everything.
Donal Downs, president of the Flydressers Guild, retired as an architect some years ago after a life of designing major public works projects around the world — including a prison in Saudi Arabia! Now he spends a substantial amount of time in one of the leafier counties, minutely examining tiny scraps of sealskin and threads of colored silk. With hands more in character for a butcher than an architect, he then creates the most exquisitely realistic artificial flies for trout fishermen. “I understood,” he explained to a group of fascinated fisherman watching him tie a beautiful mock damsel fly with casual skill, “that trout couldn’t distinguish red as a color. I was appraised recently that they can.” To respectful murmurings he held up for inspection a tiny piece of fluff with a speck of red and a glistening but well-concealed hook. Oblivious of the muted thump of large bore black powder duck guns in the background, he announced ominously, “That gets them!”
Guns and the supporting paraphernalia are a huge business and the evidence is to be seen in the number of exotic rifles and shotguns littered almost casually on expensive show stands. A pair of shotguns can easily set you back SR250,000 or even as little as SR2,500. Security is apparently almost non-existent, though it would be an unwise man who tried to relieve a showstand of a shotgun. In a very British sort of way, respectful looking gentlemen, hands behind their backs, heads inclined inquisitively in attitudes of earnest inquiry, ask technical questions about Damascus barrels and chokes while small flocks of schoolboys stand just out of scolding range staring at the firepower. The ambient noise in an otherwise tranquil country setting is of shooting: Clay pigeons and skeet are shattered with quite amazing accuracy by olive-green clad men and women who, while not discharging potentially lethal firearms safely, would support the banning of firearms. Certainly all but their shotguns. Overseeing the procedure are elegantly clad ladies with floppy straw hats and colorful parasols languidly marking up complex score sheets with one hand and holding bone china teacups in the other hand. It’s so very English! It’s also the same contradiction and contrast again. The sport is serious business. The ritual and elegance are part of the messy business of killing and preparing for consumption. The breeding of captive birds to be released into the wild to be shot for sport — it’s all part of the fatal attraction of blood sports.
Not all birds raised in captivity are released to be shot at. Jemima Parry-Jones, director of the National Birds of Prey Center in Gloucestershire, breeds and rescues falcons and birds of prey — raptors. Author of six books on various aspects of falconry, she is a world authority on everything concerning falcons and has even bred new strains not found in the wild. Injured or sick birds brought to her are assessed and treated; some are returned to the wild but the ones she considers to be unable to survive are housed and may become part of the breeding program.
Director of the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey, Jim Elliot, commented on Jemima’s uncanny rapport with her raptors. He says he has never encountered anything like it. “The birds recognize and respect the way she handles herself. It’s very impressive the way they respond to her.” The large golden eagle that quietly stepped onto her gloved hand reinforced the point. “He just refuses to go to anyone else or let anyone else handle him.” Jemima smiled as he spoke; the bird turned and hissed at a spectator that he felt had come a little too close.
The ancient sport of falconry is the very essence of the Game Fair, providing as it does the link with ancient traditions of hunting and the more recent concerns with conservation for principle or profit. Looking at a falcon’s sheer beauty and elegance which originates with its need to hunt in order to survive, it’s easy for us to feel the stirrings of ancestral hunters, buried but not eliminated by socialization. Perhaps that is the paradox that makes country sports so appealing. The beauty of creation and the beast in all of us.