Years ago, I found myself drinking single-malt Scotch with a small group of raptor enthusiasts on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One of them had been Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s roommate at boarding school, where the two had apparently developed a shared obsession with falcons. He had stories to tell, but I’d rather not get sued. Besides, it’d also piss off a lot of falconers.
This past spring, I joined a couple hundred falconers about a dozen miles from downtown Boise, Idaho. We gathered at the Archives of Falconry, a low-slung building perched on a hill with a commanding view of the valley and the snow-capped mountains beyond. You could also see the treeless new housing developments crawling out from the city’s outskirts. A depressing sight.
The Archives holds the largest collection of falconry-associated items in the world. It also organises an annual gathering of falconers who, this year, came from Britain, Canada and across the US. We call it a “rendezvous”, a nod to the Old West and the annual meet-ups of trappers, hunters and traders who exchanged furs and pelts for supplies and companionship after a lonely year in the wilderness. The rendezvous’ centrepiece is a moving outdoor ceremony where people stand up and reminisce about falconers who died that year and whose names have been added to the Wall of Remembrance.
To read the rest of this article, become a member for free.