All About Animals discussion

I visited a bird sanctuary called Wingspan here in NZ yesterday. They had falcons, hawks and owls - birds of prey. The function of Wingspan is to train birds up for release in the wild. If a bird is orphaned it will die without parents to teach it hunting skills. I was very very captivated by these beautiful creatures.

I'll put the link to the Wingspan website here below for you to explore but meanwhile, has anyone read any good stories featuring birds of prey written from the point of view of the bird?

I keep finding that Tennyson poem, The Eagle, recurring to my brain, ever since visiting Wingspan and this may be because they had information and exhibits about the extinct NZ Haast eagle which fed on moa (extinct birds bigger than ostriches.) I saw a construction of the eagle's foot and it was big enough for the talons to grip comfortably right around a human head. The wingspan was vast. They were the biggest eagles ever.
here's the poem:

The Eagle

HE clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

And here's Wingspan:
http://www.wingspan.co.nz/index.html

I just read that the Haast's eagle was the largest eagle known to have existed. Bearing in mind that moa could be three metres tall, here's a drawing of the Haast's eagle attacking moa:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

I watched "bird of prey" show in several zoos. Most of them were done in an open air amphitheater of sort. The birds were trained to catch food/mice that were put on stage or tossed in the air.

I don't think they have that kind of training sanctuary in Indonesia.

Well Anny, if ever you are in New Zealand, I will take you to Wingspan.

Now I've got two reasons to go to NZ:
1. Phoebe
2. Wingspan

Wonder how long that list will be by the time I actually go *laughs*

Anny wrote: Wonder how long that list will be by the time I actually go *laughs*"

We'll keep working on the list until you actually arrive! LOL!

I haven't ever read any book from the bird point of view that I remember. That would be interesting.

If they are taking care of the birds to release them then that's a great place.

Birds need to be free for sure.

No stories form the point of view of birds of prey?

Sounds like my favourite ten two-letter words are popping up again.
"If it is to be, it is up to me."

Maybe Lastwolf might like to have a go also:

It's not first person point of view, but Katherine Laskey's Guardians of Ga'Hoole series is told from the point of view of an owl. Hers are the only books I know that are told from the perspective of a bird of prey.

I'll look that one up then. Thanks for that. Doesn't have to be first person - as long as it is the owl's perspective. But it is still pretty clear we lack books in this niche.

Tui wrote: "I'll look that one up then. Thanks for that. Doesn't have to be first person - as long as it is the owl's perspective. But it is still pretty clear we lack books in this niche."
I was on my iPod when I posted earlier so I couldn't give any kind of link, but I am adding one now that I am on my computer.

Link to book one of The Guardians of Ga'Hoole

I also haven't read it, because it is a comic series told with no words and I have never been able to get into the wordless ones, but I just remembered that there is a series by Andy Runton called Owly that is drawn from the point of view of an owl.


Still, writing from the point of view of birds of prey doesn't appear to have been done much.

Thank-you - I'll check them out. I just wrote the following into my Story Idea's file:

"5th June 2013
Karearea! Native NZ falcons. A story from their POV. What a character you could have. Fierce, fearless, faster than hurricanes, keen-eyed, five-day memory. We can feel the wind streaming through our tail feathers, see a tiny mouse so far below in the grass. The sky is LITERALLY the limit."

In The Encounter one of the boy ended up taking an eagle form permanently. Animorphs is a really interesting book because it covers plenty of animals and we get to know tit-bits about each of them.

Animorphs! I remember those.

My favourite raptor is the peregrine though I love kestrels and all owls.
Round my home there are six pairs of common buzzard, numerous tawny owls and three breeding pairs of barn owls. I also frequently see sparrowhawks and occasionally a peregrine.
My favourite raptor stories remain A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines (love Kes, the film of the book. too) and The owl stories The Ancient Solitary Reign and The Lost Domain by Martin Hocke.

Oh... the Tennyson poem is great and I happen to be lucky enough to have been christened in the same font/church as Tennyson. My dad also began his working life as a gardener at Somersby Rectory where Tennyson lived (not while he was still alive though).

From over here in NZ where we just don't have that kind of literary history surrounding us, that seems amazing to me. How could you not be a writer after starting your life that way.

But, Tui, I'm no poet as Lord Alfred was. Check out my recent efforts in my profile writing... nothing remained in the font water to anoint me with even the ghost of Tennyson's skills.

I disagree and the Alzheimer's poem proves it. So heartfelt. I feel for you. It is the saddest thing.

I've already lost my sister-in-law, my god father and my best male friend to this disease now it's taking my best friend.
I hate it so much I can't even spell it's name correctly let alone describe what it's done to me.
Watching the decline of my friend after all the others makes it's destruction very, VERY personal.... hence I say we both have it.

I worked out from the poem that you were not afflicted personally but were sharing her load emotionally.

Tui... that's right. She was diagnosed last year and given 2 - 3 years. She cannot use any drugs to help slow the progress of the disease as they apparently slow the heart and she already as a slow heart rate.

This thread makes me think of her and the days we spent working together on the farm in the 1970's. We would lie watching the kestrels hover as we ate our lunch. She was enchanted by them and I remember how happy she was when I told her the old name for the kestrel is the windhover.
The Alzheimers is as much mine as hers... or so it feels.

Windhover - what a beautiful name for them. Also a good name for a story. I can almost imagine you writing a story for her and including the windhover.

Story, no but another poem.... in my profile writing.

Memories of those days are so strong, my senses remember as keenly as my mind. Hers falter whilst mine rage.

Kestrels really are such lovely birds and sadly their numbers are falling in the UK.

Yes, we only have 4000 pairs of our native falcons left. Their are plenty of our Australasian harriers - much bigger birds but not as fascinating.

My Jeff (a pom) was riding down Mt Pirongia in the dark a few days ago on his mountain-bike and he said an Owl was following him around quite close. Wonder if that would be a morepork.