The International Eagle
Austringer's Association
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Welcome to the International Eagle Austringer's Association website.
The IEAA is a group of eagle falconry enthusiasts worldwide aimed at promoting the "art and practice" of our sport and passion.
The IEAA has a new Hunting Blog, to highlight member hunts, Meets and informal gatherings!
Mike and Betty's season is coming to an end, here is a photo tribute to one of this season's most prolific team.
Thanks guys for a fantastic season!
Book Review
"Hunting Eagle"
By Martin Hollinshead
The Hunting Eagle is another fine book by Martin Hollinshead, the tenth in his series! Martin started the series with a book called Hawking Ground Quarry but unlike many other books that cover this topic, Martin included a bird that is usually scorned by most falconry texts, the Golden Eagle. I remember reading that first book and some part of me said; Yeah, I knew the Golden Eagle could be a good falconry bird!
Martin must have sensed the enthusiasm that those few short chapters covering the Golden Eagle stirred and soon another title showed up called Hawking with Golden Eagles. This book, completely dedicated to eagle falconry showed what at the time seemed unbelievable; Golden eagles reliably taking game from the fist! And these were not just rabbit flights; the Golden was up against the legendary European Brown hare and was showing talents and consistency that were unthinkable at the time and were reserved for the mighty goshawk. As if that wasn’t enough, flights on fox and even Roe deer were becoming normal and individual falconers and individual birds were being recognized as specialists at these difficult quarries.
One of the treasures in his series is, “The last Wolf Hawker” where Martin outlines the history of a remarkable figure in the eagle hawking community, Friedrich Remmler. The title would seem to indicate that this book was about hunting wolves with an eagle but instead, it was a fascinating story about a man, almost completely isolated from falconry or its texts that tacked eagle falconry from a completely unique perspective, and exceeded anyone’s expectations. The series continued to document the rise of eagle falconry in Europe with another fine book, the German Eagle.
The latest installment in the series is titled “Hunting Eagle” which brings us closer to present day eagle falconry by concentrating on more recent history and tying together how the different fronts of eagle falconry met up at the big field meets in Opocno, Germany and Poland. Martin’s familiar writing style and logical progression through time carries over to this new book and the story seamlessly picks up where his previous writings left off. This book shows some of the starts and stops that plagued early eagle falconry and shows how isolated groups of early eagle falconers found different ways to utilize this powerful bird. It was only after all these different paths converged that the real potential of the Golden as a falconry bird was realized.
Martin’s entire series covers and highlights all the incredible aspects of what American falconers call Dirt Hawking. This is a term that used to be sort of a dig pointed in the direction of all those that didn’t fly longwings; but to many, that title was worn as a badge of honor. Even in Martin’s non-eagle falconry titles, I believe he shows a side of ground hawking that few have reached and if you haven’t done so already, I would highly recommend you read each and every one of his books. But for eagle falconers, his books tracing this aspect of our sport are enjoyable “must reads.”
Martin's books are avialable from most falconry book sources including Mike's Falconry, Northwoods and Western Sporting.
