My three best friends, Billy, Colin and Dennis, were just as enthusiastic about the pond as I was, yet all they ever wanted to do was sail their model boats. I would, of course, accompany them on regatta days, launching various craft that in former times had only plied across the bath at home. My pals had yachts with proper cotton sails while I had a wooden canoe with two Apache Indians and – my pride and joy – a clockwork rowing boat with a man who rocked back and forth as he pulled on the oars. One memorable day, when the motor was fully wound, he rowed as far as the island in the pond’s centre, but, as we were waiting for the breeze to waft him back to shore, a stone came whistling out of the sky and almost capsized him.
On the opposite bank a gang of unknown boys maybe twice our age were collecting pebbles prior to the destruction of our fleet by catapults. Of my friends, only Dennis possessed such a weapon, and on that day it was not in his pocket. However, had we all been armed we would not have been so daft as to return fire against such murderously superior opposition. Our only hope lay in the fact that we were on the heathland side where there was plenty of cover, if only we could gather the drifting fleet in time. We swamped our boots, there were a few more near misses, yet we retrieved our craft and escaped without serious injury. Following a narrow twisting path that led through man-high bracken, we ran towards a distant wood. The sound of our fleeing was like the sound of cavalry galloping across a shallow ford; even when we reached the trees our boots were still half filled with pondwater. The enemy had pursued us, but we had been quick enough, vanishing into the ferns before they had even circuited the pond. Now we pushed deeper into the wood until we found a quiet place to sit a moment, draw breath and drain our wellingtons.
It seemed sensible that we should circle round, keeping under the trees as far as the Reigate Road which would lead us safely home. However, after just a few yards we saw the unexpected glitter of water through the shadows and, turning from our intended path, came upon another pond. It was a quarter the size of the village pond, saucer-shaped and surrounded by tall reeds. The water looked deep and crystal clear and it was obvious we had made an important, magical discovery. Not wanting to linger too long, we turned again and followed a track leading between thickets of blackthorn to the new pond’s almost identical twin. Once more, we dared not pause and savour it for long, but made sure we’d remember the way back for a future exploration. Continuing along the path we stumbled on yet another tiny reed-encircled pool. It lay just beyond the last line of trees on the edge of a wide grassy field, and because it seemed so far from the known world, so impossible for anyone else to discover, we felt safe enough to crawl under a wire fence, step out into the sunlight and sit by the water.
For a few minutes we kept hold of our model boats, but the complete quiet reassured us and we put them down, though no one was bold enough to refloat them, nor, I think, did we even consider this: it was enough simply to have escaped persecution and fled into this foreign and enchanted field. It stretched down a long gentle incline towards an incredibly distant horizon of blueish pine trees. Over to our left a derelict barn leaned out of a clump of trees, beyond which a group of cows were lying in the shade of a solitary elm. Dennis, who was not looking at the view, suddenly shouted ‘Newt!’ very loudly and made me jump. He pointed down into the pond where a golden finger-length creature was hanging motionless in the water with its nose poking up through the surface. Its feet were spread like tiny hands and the dark crest along the length of its back and tail gave it the appearance of a miniature dinosaur. It blew a single bubble, turned slowly and with a flick vanished into the glassy depth.
Unlike Dennis, I had never seen a newt before, yet even he seemed excited. All four of us crept round the spongy bank, looking for another, hoping to capture it and maybe bring it home in a wet sock. Though the water was perfectly transparent – so different from the cloudy village pond – and though I spotted a monster water beetle (which I only later discovered was a dragonfly larva), there were no more amphibians on display. Perhaps if we returned for a whole day with one of the little nets they sold in the corn stores we might be more successful, but only Dennis and I wanted the hunt to become more serious.
Safely back home, I looked through all my picture books for an illustration of a newt. Naturally there were dragons and sea monsters and dinosaurs, but I could not find any newts until my helpful elder sister, Helen, tracked one down in her Children’s Encyclopedia. It was not quite as impressive as the real thing, yet it kept me happy and inspired until the day came when Dennis and I journeyed back to the field pond. We did not call in at the corn stores on the way and buy a net: there was no need as Dennis’s big brother had described an alternative and far more effective method of newting. All we needed, he said, was a long thin stick, two yards of button thread and some worms. Apparently, this had been a long-held elder brother’s secret, but now he was taken up with other passions he could finally reveal it.
With our newt rods and our lines baited with a knotted-on worm we looked like a couple of genuine anglers. It was so thrilling I could hardly speak, though I was not certain, despite what Dennis’s brother had told us, what would happen if a newt actually grabbed the bait. Would I be able to tell? Would it hang on long enough to be swung ashore? Maybe five or twenty-five long minutes passed before Dennis pointed nervously at his twitching line. I probably gasped as he snatched it up – but there was nothing there – not even the worm. Something had stolen it all. As Dennis rebaited, my line quivered where it slanted through the surface. I immediately flicked it into the air where, like a miracle, a fantastic creature suddenly appeared, hands spread out, swinging towards me. Only when it was on the grass next to me did it let go of the worm.
Reverently, I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand. Its quiet eyes and slow careful movements helped calm me down a little, but my heart kept pounding because, at that moment, my newt – olive green with webbed hind claws, a palmate newt – was the most wondrous thing I had ever seen. And with it swimming in a jam-jar I could take it home and say I had caught more than the fishermen.
The Falconer’s Tale
Dan Kieran
For most of us the countryside is a realm of escape; a living postcard that runs in real time through your brain, somewhere to dream of when you are immersed in the mania of a city. A walk in this landscape loosens your shoulders and draws out your breath in soft gasps. Waves ‘dance’, flowers ‘flutter’ and the promise of lusty milkmaids is only ever the next valley away. This is nature in soft focus, the Wordsworthian idyll of our imagination where we carelessly love to play.
Stalking through the woods with a hawk on your gloved fist strips nature of such romance but keeps its authenticity vividly intact. The memory of something more agile and real about the living, wild world begins to seep out of your bones and your focus razors. His head moves slowly and methodically, the wings stretch out as he rebalances with his yellow taloned feet and the eyes flit and twitch. No longer passively consuming the landscape from the audience, he pulls you onto the stage. The breeze flattens. Birdsong scatters. Silence. The sound of the wild food chain. You begin to feel the pressure of every living thing in the earth on the back of your neck as you pace beyond the gorse, but even in this heightened state you are ponderous. Remaining sure-footed, his head plunges towards the ground, anticipating a vole’s movement, but by the time your gaze lands with his you are lucky to glimpse a shoelace tail vanish into the grass. Your shoulders broaden with anticipation and you untie the falconer’s knot that binds him to your glove with your right hand and lightly hold the jesses – the soft leather straps attached to his ankles – between the fingers and palm of your left. Hawks and falcons calculate unconsciously whether the energy required to catch potential quarry is worth the effort. You think of the astonishing triangulation these instincts perform when a flurry of feathers brushes your face. You instinctively open your hand, extend your arm and reel slightly. He’s off – coursing through the light.
This sensation of closeness between tamed man and wild bird has a lineage that goes back millennia. According to the written, or more often drawn, archive that we use to trace the route of history, hawks and falcons were first used to hunt for food in China and Mesopotamia around 700 bc. From the training to the equipment it requires, the essential elements of falconry are unchanged