My wingman is an eagle - how a pilot’s unlikely friendship..

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My wingman is an eagle - how a pilot’s unlikely friendship with a bird took off

Where microlights dare, an eagle follows. The story of Sampson and Jonathan Marshall is thought to be a first in the annals of formation flying.

Sampson is 4 years old, 3ft tall when at rest and in possession of a 7ft wing-span. He and his increasingly rare kin are Britain’s largest birds of prey. Mr Marshall is 38, an experienced falconer and the owner of a stringbag motorised glider.

Such is the bond between man and bird that the two are regularly seen over the skies of North Devon sharing the freedom of flight that is second nature to a golden eagle but which a land-based mammal can achieve only with the help of a small engine.

After a year of training the bird has learnt to follow his master into the air, and cruise with him at 2,000ft (610 metres) for hours at a time.

Sampson was rescued by Mr Marshall from an unusually cruel childhood. He was born in captivity in Estonia and found himself transferred to a British zoo from where he was stolen and kept in a wardrobe for six months until he was rescued by police.

Trapped in his tiny dark cell, Sampson broke every feather in his wings and tail trying to escape. Mr Marshall took him in, spent four months nursing him back to health, and gradually trained him to sit on his falconer’s gloved hand. “Over the time it took him to recover we built up a bond of trust and went hunting together like a pair of golden eagles would do in the wild,” Marshall said yesterday. “But I was on the ground with a leather glove while he was in the air. I just wanted to be up there with him; it was a natural progression for me.”

Over six more months, and using copious rabbit meat bait, Mr Marshall, from Barnstaple, Devon, finally coaxed Sampson to follow his microlight into the air and to fly alongside it. A bird that is capable of a 100mph (160km/h) dive has to think carefully before poodling along beside a 30mph airborne wheelbarrow.

“To start with it was like watching a chick learn to fly, except that he is this huge 3ft-tall creature. Because he had had little experience of flying he was a bit ungainly at first and it took him some time to learn to soar. But he got there and you could tell he just loved it; suddenly he was 500ft in the air, soaring above the sea and looking so majestic, the way it should be.”

Sampson gradually learnt to approach the microlight, and then to fly alongside it. “When we are up there in the clouds I talk to him and he calls back and circles around me; it is an awesome and exhilarating experience,” Mr Marshall said.

Using eagles for falconry is not uncommon. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said: “We have no problem with the practice as long as the birds are not taken from the wild.” But the state of the wild golden eagle is precarious. The RSPB said that England’s last breeding pair, which lived in the Lake District, have not been seen for some time and may have died. Scotland’s population of about 450 breeding pairs remains steady.

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The Inquisitor

Very interesting story.

My daughter had a pigeon that she was nursing back to health for a while. The bird was staying in our living room until it felt strong enough to fly out on its own. The mess it made on the top of the bookshelf was indiscribable.

obmar

remember the days when pidgeon was the email of the day