EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF FALCONRY IS IMPRESSIVE. Where can you travel from the steppes of central Asia, across the deserts of Arabia, through Europe history, and then turn back to Japan, Korea and China, without leaving Berkshire? Jim Chick, one of the  organising committee and chairman of the Hawk Board (representing falconry in

the UK), is infectiously enthusiastic: “This is not any old costume parade or re-enactment event. The falconers that the public will meet are genuine; they have crossed continents to be here, and are passionate about their long tradition and culture. What is really fantastic is how one sport brings some forty-five nations together through a love of birds of prey. Some will have travelled for days to get to Reading; many have never left their country before.”  

Falconry is ancient. No one really knows when man first trained a hawk or falcon but the popular theory is that it started in asia somewhere about the time of Genghis Khan: an obsessive falconer and, despite his warlike tendencies, a known conservationist. From there it spread across the globe