Blood ties - Ben Crane

An uncannily brilliant evocation of the falconers art and a moving story of a man's discovery of how to be a father.

This is a book about a man's relationship with hawks, and his self-education as a falconer, and about his discovery that despite his Asperger's Syndrome, which hampers his normal social interactions, he can forge a loving bond with the young son he thought he had lost. He rediscovers his full humanity through his commitment to the training of falcons and his love of the natural world.

Ben Crane writes with uncanny accuracy and lyrical precision about the intricacies of birds' behaviour and their instincts. He has a ruthless eye for the minute details of natural processes - of plumage, the patterns of flight, of killing, death and decay. He's as clear-eyed about himself and his detachment from ordinary human society as he is about the flight of peregrines and goshawks.

Here is nature writing at its very best, interwoven with an affecting human story and an account of how a man mastered the ancient craft of falconry.