Highland Hunting With Air, Pride and Plume : At a falconry school in Scotland, a novice meets Kilari the hawk.

HUNTLY, Scotland —  Kilari and I held each other’s respectful stare for just a second, then we both faced down the hill and toward the stream a hundred yards away.

There was nothing moving there but the soft current. The brown grass and the deep green patches of gorse shrubs on the Aberdeenshire hillside were still.

It was like this for several minutes.

Then the rabbit ran.

Kilari, the hawk on my fist, saw it first, of course.

Birds of prey--hawks and falcons--have eyesight about eight times better than a human’s. Not that I was a slouch: Nearsightedness and all, I caught the flurry of gray at almost the same time. The rabbit, which had popped out of a warren hole in the hillside, was running full tilt in the open field. What luck for us.

Kilari spread her magnificent chestnut-brown wings and strained at the narrow leashes that anchored her fragile legs to my gloved fingers. I opened my hand to release the straps, and Kilari swooped. The chase was on.

I began to breathe again, urging on the bird. The rabbit was fast, a bullet on a vector for the protection of the green gorse, where he would be hidden and safe. But he had some ground to cover.

Kilari was arcing in her pursuit. She was 25 yards from the prey and closing and, to my inexperienced eye, seemed too high to attack in time. But my angle of view was poor, and Ian, my teacher in Scotland, let out a whoop when the bird and the rabbit reached the gorse together. I thought we had a kill.

Ian bounded down the hill as I followed gingerly and saw Kilari perched on a nearby branch. No rabbit in sight.

“He got away!” yelled Ian. “She grabbed him, but he kicked her off and escaped in the gorse. Call Kilari back.”

I was getting good at calling Kilari back. This was the third miss of the morning. But the day was young.

I reached into the plastic-lined camping bag belted around my middle and gently plucked out a piece of dead chick, the uncooked kind. The bag was filled with a dozen pieces of this slimy bait when we left the falconry center; now it was down by half.

I dangled the slippery raw meat from my gloved left hand, held it high and shouted: “Come, Kilari, come.” And after a minute she did, flapping in a brilliant beeline for my fist. She attacked the meat with her beak and immediately settled in satisfaction on the glove. Taking the straps, or “jesses,” tied around her legs, I secured Kilari to my hand, tucked her close to my chest to shelter her from the wind, and we were off again, in search of slower rabbits.

Scotland is shortbread and scones, Highlands and Lowlands, gritty cities and wild, wind-swept coasts. And Scotland is also the North East Falconry Visitors’ Center.

Perhaps understandably, visitors to Scotland rarely think about hunting rabbits with falcons. There’s too much else to do, with all the castles and the history, the festivals in Edinburgh, the spectacular scenery of the west coast and the offshore islands.

But my purpose was single-minded. In the heart of winter I journeyed north from the gray city of Glasgow--affectionately called “The Big Smoke” by the rural Scots--propelled in a spirited Vauxhall Astra to the friendly village of Huntly to embark on a three-day course on the study of falconry.

I had only the vaguest idea what to expect. My hunting experience had been confined to the butcher case at my local delicatessen.

I’d done some pre-trip research of this old sport. Who flew the first falcon? An Arab, perhaps, or a Persian or a Chinese, and it was a good 4,000 years ago.

Originally, hunting with hawks and falcons was a means to a very specific end: capturing food. It was the British nobility--those wonderful folks who refined the concept we now know as “leisure time”--who elevated falconry to an art: The kill became secondary to the skillful exploitation of the bird. Even the Queen Mother still goes out hawking.

But these days, falconry is very much a multi-class activity, popular among all kinds of people.

My idea of a leisure activity is watching Monday night football or driving an Italian sports car on curvy roads in autumn. Traipsing through fields of cow dung, schlepping a pouch of dead chicks, is rarely required for these diversions.

But it was an exotic bait put out by the North East Falconry Visitors’ Center in a tiny blurb in an adventure-tours brochure: three days of practical instruction in falconry, with at least one day of hunting, for a reasonable $350.

Open only since last year, the center is owned by an entrepreneur named Nick Mellor and operated by Ian McCheyne and his able assistants, Steve Legg and Steve Eals. All the chaps are from England--McCheyne is a Cornishman--but they’ve adopted and adapted to the Scottish Highlands.

Although the North East Falconry Visitors’ Center is only one of about a dozen falconry and birds-of-prey facilities in the United Kingdom, this is an up-and-coming business. More than 20,000 visitors came through last summer, the center’s first season.

Scotland and the Western United States, including California, are considered classic areas to practice long-wing hawking--i.e., the hunting of quarry with falcons. Scotland, in particular, stands out due to its rolling open countryside and excellent cover. Thus, from the British love of field sports such as shooting, fox hunting and fishing comes the business of falconry, as visitors view live exhibitions, study the breeding process and hunting habits of the birds, and even participate in the process.

Far enough removed from civilization to offer a semi-wilderness experience, the center, about 200 miles north of Edinburgh, is still close enough to the real world (it’s only 10 miles from Huntly to the distilleries along touristy Malt Whiskey Trail) to provide good food and lodgings. There’s a cozy bed and breakfast inn in Huntly, a small hotel and adequate choices for meals.

Armed with waterproof boots, a sturdy Barbour waterproof jacket and a little knowledge, I arrived at the center on a chilly Monday morning with a mist lingering over the low hills. What I found was that falconry is not a vocation--nor a vacation--for the squeamish.

It was Sasquatch, the snowy owl, who first captured my affections.

The first morning, Ian, my teacher and companion for the three days, took me on a tour of the mews . Mews is one of the many words, including haggard and booze and musket , appropriated to our English vernacular from the falconry lexicon. I met Cochise, a very imposing bald eagle, and Byron and Mrs. P, two handsome peregrine falcons, and the fluffy Sasquatch, a bird of impeccable character and good looks.

Inside a heated hut on a cold morning, Ian poured me a cup of coffee and described the falcon’s “furniture”--the leashes, the bells, the handmade hoods used to blind and calm the birds when they have to be handled extensively or transported. He showed me how to carve a pair of jesses from a strip of kangaroo skin, how to attach the swivel and the leash, how to tie a falconer’s knot.

Steve Legg, a portly, friendly man with a work ethic that didn’t quit, carried in Cochise, a bald eagle, for her morning weigh-in. “ ‘Ello, darlin,’ ” he said. The bird fluttered and pulled back. “Now don’t even think about that,” he admonished.

Ian is also a student of the sport and devoted to the birds. His students are taught to attend to the bird’s comfort: Hold them to your chest, shelter them from the wind, don’t tease them by offering food and then taking it back. And never stare down a bird. “Only an adversary stares at a hawk,” he warned.

Sometimes, Ian said, visitors at the demonstrations are intrigued and want to learn more. Often, though, he’s approached by bird owners who haven’t the foggiest about the care, feeding and training of a hawk.

Once one buys a bird--there are hundreds of licensed breeders in the U.K. and even a newspaper, Cage & Aviary Birds, with classified ads for hawks and falcons--the bird must be tamed and taught to come to the fist.

Training is fairly basic for most of the hawks and falcons. “The point is to develop a rapport, slowly,” said Ian. That begins by approaching the bird with deference, carrying it around slowly on the glove and a leash, talking and gently stroking its plumage.

Gradually, the distance between the trainer and hawk is increased, and the bird is restrained on a long line, or creance. When the line reaches about a hundred yards, the bird usually can be trusted to fly free, and be introduced to wild quarry.

Often hawks are trained to feed from the lure, a weighted device tied to a cord. A piece of meat is attached to the lure. The trainer whirls the lure in a wide circle--this is the basis for the exhibitions at the center--and the bird can be made to stoop (the falconer’s term for dive ) again and again until it masters the graceful, dramatic art of the hunt.

After a fish-and-chips lunch that first afternoon, I met my feathered companion.

Kilari was a stately Harris hawk. An accipiter, or short-winged, long-legged hawk with low, darting flight, it is a common “bird of the fist,” gregarious and social, I was told, and it takes easily to strangers. A wise-guy remark from a pal before I left--”Watch you don’t get your eyes pecked out”--crossed my mind fleetingly. Maybe I was underestimating the danger--Ian instructed that I hold the hawk’s leash tightly--but I was comfortable with Kilari. I’m not sure what she thought of me.

“We thought we were naming her after a South American frog poison that the Amazonians wipe on their arrows,” Ian said, quite seriously. “It looked like Kilari had the killer instinct. Turned out the poison was actually called curare. But the name stuck.”

Kilari had “cast,” or regurgitated, her pellet in the morning, and she was at the correct weight. Ian and his men pay close attention to the birds’ weights, which must be within a fraction of an ounce of their ideal weights on hunting days. Overweight by less than an ounce, a bird might lack the appetite to hunt.

Kilari was hilarious to watch when she walked--which wasn’t often. She waddled, swaying from side to side, her tail feathers tucked underneath her two-pound body.

Kilari made three valiant but unsuccessful tries that first day as we hunted on the steep hillsides of a valley. Her first was a textbook swoop, but the quarry was too far and too fast. During her second, shorter dive, Kilari made a drastic half-turn to corner a rabbit heading for the warren. But it was Rabbits 2, Kilari 0. Then came the close-but-no-rabbit episode, when the bird actually grabbed the prey but it got away.

Ian and the three Steves--including me--post-mortemed the hunt that evening at the Auld Pit lounge over a few pints and a couple of games of pool. In three days we’d become mates. Ian and his wife, Pauline, invited me to their home for dinner (the entree was hare in a stew pot). Besides birds--Ian’s favorite subject--we swapped jokes and past-life stories.

On my final day of hunting, we were poking about in a set near a barbed-wire fence--actually Trevor the ferret was doing most of the poking--when a rabbit scooted from a hole.

Kilari rocketed off my fist. The rabbit had gone under the wire and was making for some shrub cover in the middle of a field, about 50 yards away. Kilari wasn’t high enough and had some trouble negotiating the fence, but finally she did. The rabbit, nearing the gorse, apparently was the victim of some misguided hunch: He decided to double back. The bird attacked with her talons. Then she “mantled,” covering the prey like an umbrella with her wings.

Ian knifed the rabbit to kill it immediately. Birds go for what Steve Legg calls “the nasty parts,” and Kilari pecked at the eyes. Ian used his hands to take out the guts (left in the field “for the crows”) and gave Kilari part of the leg. “The bird must be rewarded right away with warm meat,” he said. He packed the rest of the carcass inside a pouch. It would be feed for later.

Witnessing this very basic, natural act of killing, with a little help from humans, first fascinated and then sickened me. I realized that, for me, the enjoyment was the hunt itself and not the execution.

Ian congratulated me--”You are now a falconer,” he said--but I didn’t have much appetite for lunch that day. Maybe hunting is a taste you develop.

“Either you’re hooked the first time or you’re not,” Ian said. I’m not sure I agreed with that. But when he said, “As with most of life, the thrill of falconry is in the pursuit,” we both drank to that.

GUIDEBOOK: Soaring in Scotland

Getting there: Glasgow is the most convenient U.K. gateway to Scotland. American, British Airways, Delta, Northwest Airlines and United offer service from Los Angeles to Glasgow. American has one direct and two connecting flights daily. Round-trip fares are $638 for midweek travel, $658 weekends, rising to $738 weekdays from June 1 through Sept. 30, $758 weekends.

The easiest way by far to reach the Highlands in northeast Scotland is to drive; the major rental car outlets are at the Glasgow airport.

The falcons: The North East Falconry Visitors’ Center in Huntly is about a four-hour drive from Glasgow on good roads. The falconry center is open full-time from March to October. Daily admission is about $6 for adults, $4 for children. There are several flying exhibitions during the day--the trainer uses a lure on a long cord to get the bird to swoop, glide and dive, plus there’s the opportunity to visit the mews and take close-up pictures of the birds. There’s a gift shop, cafeteria and outdoor lunch tables on the grounds.

Three- and four-day courses in falconry are also offered.

Where to stay: The Drumdelgie House, a short walk from the falconry center, offers a cozy Victorian bed and breakfast. There are also rooms in Frances and Duncan Leece’s home, as well as private cottages. For lodging information, call locally 46687-368.

Where to eat: There isn’t a big dining choice, but the Leeces offer dinner, and Tony’s restaurant in the village prepares wonderful steaks, courtesy of the Aberdeen beef herds. Huntly also is the home of Dean’s of Huntly bakery; Mrs. Dean makes the best shortbread.

Falconry in California: For information on falconry in California and the Western United States, contact Kim Mauch, membership secretary of the California Hawking Club, P.O. Box 786, Sacramento 95812-0786, (916) 989-6749. Club president Eric Steinhauer says the organization is the largest of its kind in the country, with about 500 members. The club’s annual field meet is held around Jan. 1 in the city of Los Banos, about 150 miles south of San Francisco.

For more information: Contact the British Tourist Authority, 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 628-3525.