Falconry in Spain

Many different cultures around the world have become captivated by birds of prey. The beauty of these raptors, their elegance and aloofness, the freedom they symbolise as they ride the winds looking down on the whole of creation, has captured our attention

Nature in her wisdom decides whether the hunting ability of a bird of prey trained by humans is greater than its wild prey’s ability to escape.
This makes falconry an extremely selective method of hunting that respects thousands of years of natural evolution.
If the bird catches its prey, it will always be the weakest, the most impaired, or the ‘lost sheep’ of the group.
For royalty and nobility this form of hunting has always been a healthy pastime and a badge of aristocracy. Their hunting partners were called ‘noble birds’ and tough laws guaranteed their protection.
Falconry was one of the favourite sports of the most important royal courts in Europe.
However, it did require great dedication to the care of the birds and produced relatively few rewards, and the advent of firearms threatened to trigger a sharp fall in its popularity.
Falconry’s heyday, when the hawk was the centre of attention of monarchs and courtiers alike, when their winged companions filled many of their waking hours, was brushed aside by the advance of technology.
Hunting techniques changed. Prey that had been caught in lengthy complicated fashion could suddenly be caught in larger numbers and with less effort with blunderbusses and shotguns that hit their targets almost every time.
Nevertheless, a few diehard romantics, English nobles and Dutch royals, enthusiastically kept falconry alive in Europe in the dark years of the 19th century.

Falconry as Spanish cultural heritage
In eastern Spain, there are records of our relationship with hunting and birds of prey dating back more than 2,000 years. It is amazing that falconry has been part of Spain’s cultural heritage for so long.
Falconers studied and kept raptors long before the ecological movement or modern-day ornithology appeared.
The vast collection of books that have been written on the subject was begun as long ago as the 14th century with Prince Juan Manuel’s 1325 offering, Libro de la Caza (book of hunting).
Laws passed in defence of birds of prey by a number of monarchs, including Alfonso X el Sabio in the 13th century, also prove falconry’s historical credentials.
There can be no question that falconry has contributed to the conservation of birds of prey, both by breeding them in captivity and reintroducing them into their natural habitats. Programmes are now under way to increase the numbers of species such as the Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti) and the osprey (Pandion haliaetus), based on the falconry technique of hacking, in which young falcons are released in a semi-wild state in order to improve their flying and hunting capabilities.

Falconry has also left an indelible mark on environmental education. A number of zoos and interpretation centres, including the Zoo Aquarium de la Casa de Campo and the Zoo Parque Grande (both in Madrid), the Águilas del Teide centre in Tenerife, the Parque de Cabárceno in Cantabria, and the Castillo de Águilas de Benalmádena in Málaga, have undergone a revolution in the way they show their birds of prey to the public.
From presenting the visitor with listless birds behind bars, they have progressed to keeping them physically fit by entertaining visitors with flight displays using falconry techniques.
Interestingly, raptors are also used for air traffic control. At practically all of Spain’s airports hawks are used to frighten off flocks of birds from the runways.
Various art forms – painting, tapestry, capitals, stained glass windows and sculpture – have found inspiration in falconry. It is also the source of a number of new words in the Spanish language and a host