Today in our book column, we’re featuring a 1851 book on bird hunting, which describes a very interesting method of using an eagle owl to hunt birds of prey.

“Bird Hunting, Game Hunting, and Artificial Hunts, Including: Hunts by Encirclement, Hunts with Beaters, and Hunts with an Eagle Owl for Birds of Prey” / Compiled by A. Ventseslavsky, who served as the sovereign’s equerry in the court hunting party. — St. Petersburg: V. Polyakov, 1851.

The eagle owl, as the forest’s most fearsome predator, is the object of intense hatred from other birds. Upon spotting an eagle owl that is wounded or entangled in the branches, birds (jackdaws, crows, magpies), as well as small birds of prey, fly up to it and begin—to use modern terminology—to taunt and “troll” the eagle owl with their cries and cackling. However, they do not fly very close to it. A chain reaction of calls to mock the trapped eagle owl spreads through the forest very quickly, which is why the eagle owl is the perfect decoy.

The book explains how to tame and train a live eagle owl for this purpose, but nowadays people typically use a decoy mounted on a pole with mechanical wings.

You can download the book with the link.