SHAHEEN: A FALCONER'S JOURNAL FROM TURKEY. By Paul Harris Jones.

2007 1st edition. 8vo (145 x 222mm). Pp158,2pp ads. B/w vignette illustrations. Pictorial laminated boards, issued without dust-wrapper.

"A lyrical account of an association between a man and a bird against the exotic backdrop of the Turkish countryside. The book chronicles the capture and taming of a tiercel saker falcon. While the story details the training and hunting episodes that took place with the bird, it is really a study of the bond that can grow between falconer and falcon. Shaheen is a naturalist's account of an association between author Paul H. Jones and a saker falcon in the early 1970s, before the scourge of DDT affected many species of falcons throughout the world. The author/illustrator gives us an inside view of falconry and all its trappings, little changed since the Middle Ages. In this narrative, taken from his own diaries, Jones skillfully describes his efforts to hunt game in scattered locations throughout Turkey - its dry zones, its mountains and its frozen wastes. Though there were many losses of Shaheen during the hunt, the two always reunited. In the end, in striving to find a mate for his tiercel, Jones loses the newly caught falcon and ends up releasing Shaheen, his hunting companion for a year and a half."