Every so often while out walking I will come across something or somebody that takes me by surprise. Stops me in my tracks. And so it is on my regular route to the University Parks when I encounter Dan Arnold and Trigger. Dan is a broadly built man with a kindly, weathered face and a ready smile. Trigger is his Harris hawk. A large, elegant bird, with beautiful dark chestnut colouring, pale tail feathers, sharp talons and a lethal-looking curved beak. He is sitting impatiently on Dan’s stout leather glove, a small bell tied to his right foot tinkles as he stretches, his head constantly on the move, eyes darting this way and that, assessing the surrounding situation, and eager to get to work. For the pair are on the payroll of St John’s College. And that’s where they are heading.
Dan runs a company called Bird and Pest Control Solutions. It’s written on the side of his now familiar white van parked on Museum Road. Which is where I meet him many months later after I receive all the permissions needed to accompany him on one of his twice weekly missions (wind is the only weather that might stop him) into the hallowed quadrangles of this ancient institution. His job and that of his team of three working birds of prey, (there is Missy and Bully too) is to keep the college buildings clear of pigeons. He is eager to clarify that they are not out to kill these unwelcome visitors. But to act as a deterrent. The idea being that very presence of a predator like Trigger is enough to send them packing, ensuring that they decide to build their nests and perform their doings elsewhere. And it seems to be working. There were over 70 pigeons nesting in the nooks and crannies of the 60’s Thomas White Buildings, when Dan first started working here seven years ago. Just inside the back gates to the college they are our first port of call as Trigger is unleashed and sent soaring silently along the rooftops of the L-shaped construction. The architecture is of its time, if I were to describe it politely. It won the Concrete Society Award for 1976, which says it all. But it is listed and the constant cooing, the mess, and the proliferation of accompanying pests like earwigs and centipedes that made their way through open windows can’t have been much fun for the students living here. Nowadays, thanks to Trigger and the team, there are zero nests, Dan tells me proudly.
But it is Trigger at work in the old part of St John’s College that I have really come to see. And it is a spectacle straight out of a period film set. The 17th century Canterbury Quadrangle, part gothic, part classical and today fresh and gleaming from its recent refurbishment, was built by Archbishop William Laud. Its three-day lavish opening in 1636 cost almost as much as the building itself and was attended by King Charles 1 and his wife Henrietta Maria whose bronze statues stand facing each other in elaborate niches on the colonnaded east and west sides of the space. Everywhere you look is dripping with decoration, honeyed stone lions and unicorns crouching under pediments, busts representing the Seven Virtues and the Seven Liberal Arts, coats of arms, cornucopias of overflowing fruit, a string of carvings of grotesque beasts and painted rainwater heads adorn the upper walls. All need to be kept clean of unwanted droppings from the sky. And, as if he knows he is putting on a show, Trigger glides majestically around, checking the place out, constantly alert, landing on occasion to rest on one of the many ornamentations as if posing for the photographer.
In Laud’s time birds of prey would have been commonly used for hunting, to put food on the table for the poor (rabbits, partridges and pheasant) and as a popular sport for the upper classes. Charles II is known to have hawked across country on his way from Oxford to the Burford races. Harris hawks like Trigger, come from South America and so wouldn’t have been available at that time, but there were plenty of other hunting birds to choose from: merlins, kestrels, owls, goshawks and the like. Interestingly when Laud was Chancellor at Oxford, he expressly forbade, by University Statute, students from the pastime, (or indeed from the keeping of hawks, ferrets or hunting dogs). Perhaps he thought the activity distracted them from their studies. But I think he might have approved of Trigger’s antics today. For the once besmirched statues of the old Stuart King and Queen, a few years back turned white from guano, now stand as unspoiled as the day they went up. And without the nets and spikes that uglify so many of our ancients buildings. Trigger is clearly good at his job.
I learn a lot from Dan as he flies the bird back and forth across the courtyard. That the eyesight of a harrier hawk is so good that it is believed they can see the small print of a newspaper from half a mile away. But their night vision is minimal. Ground hunting birds in the wild they are also not very fast. A pigeon can fly twice as quick. There is no way Trigger could catch a pigeon in flight. But the chicks can’t get away as easily. And that’s the point. A pigeon won’t nest where there is a natural predator. And so by flying the birds regularly overhead Dan gets the outcome he needs by changing the culvers nesting behaviour.
That there are a pair of peregrine falcons nesting somewhere in the city. They’re the ones that hunt pigeons in the wild. Dan’s seen their carcasses lying tossed away at the foot of our many towers which they use as perches. That the methodology of training these hunting birds hasn’t changed much in the 2,000 or so years falconry has been practised in this country. The most important part is to build trust. By spending time forging a relationship with each animal. Lots of time.
And that’s what Dan has done with Trigger. Now 12 years old, he came to him from a falconry centre where the hawk had been hired out to anyone who fancied flying him. But after his leg was broken when an untrained handler misjudged how to receive him back on to the glove, Dan gave him a home. It took Dan three months for the bird to understand that he meant him no harm and to build the rapport between the two that I see today.
“Now he as good as gold,” he says.
And an unexpected source of therapy for the college students. Every so often an undergraduate will come and stand and chat. Watching in delight and awe as Trigger stretches his wings and launches into flight. “I’ve had parents come up to me and say that we’ve really helped their children deal with exams or being away from home,” explains Dan. “I can see that watching us is a nice escape. As you observe the birds you forget about everything else. All your worries go out of the window. It’s mindful. It’s focused. It’s mesmerising.”
And though the pigeons might not be so sure, as I stand spellbound by the beauty of this great winged beast, I know what he means.
With grateful thanks to contributing photographer Sophia Carlarne.
In the front quad
Staking out the Thomas White building.
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