![]() ![]() Ashley coveted it for his own collection, and Geoff, who wasn’t particularly attached to it, took Tina in trade out of pure curiosity. It was utterly relaxed on public display, sitting blithely on its perch and fluffing its feathers even when it was surrounded by strangers. This goshawk, however, played against type. Geoff, not without affection, calls them “psychotic,” and adds that there’s a saying among falconers that if you can train a goshawk to hunt for a season without becoming suicidal or getting a divorce, you’ve mastered the art. Goshawks are powerful hunters who excel at chasing prey through dense woods, but they’re rarely flown for an audience because of their skittish, aggressive temperaments. Tina entered Geoff ’s life by accident, when a talented young falconer named Ashley Smith offered her to him in trade for a goshawk. Trainer, Geoff Pearson, performs at the Woodlands Falconry Centre in Devonshire, UK. Tina, the captive striated caracara dubbed “the most intelligent bird in the world” by her ![]() Find below an extract about Tina - a captive caracara defying the conventions of falconry - and Geoff, her trainer. Jonathan Meiburg ’s debut book ‘A Most Remarkable Creature’, published next month by Bodley Head, dives into the world of the caracara a clever, social bird of prey which puzzled Darwin, fascinates modern-day falconers, and carries secrets of our planet’s deep past in its family history. ![]()
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