Date: 1/25/26 9:29 pm From: Nancy Crowell via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] falconry in "Hamnet" movie
Hi Gary - what a gun bird-geeky film review! Love it!
Nancy
Nancy
"Images for the imagination."
www.crowellphotography.com
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From: Tweeters <tweeters-bounces...> on behalf of Gary Bletsch via Tweeters <tweeters...>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2026 3:25:51 PM
To: Tweeters Tweeters <tweeters...>
Subject: [Tweeters] falconry in "Hamnet" movie
Dear Tweeters,
The movie Hamnet will presumably win some Oscars this March. I just sat through it. It wasn't bad, although I think I still prefer Shakespeare in Love.
That said, the beginning of the movie had me scratching my head. The leading lady, a falconer of sorts, was flying a Harris's Hawk. "Wait," I thought, " Harris's Hawk? I thought this was a movie about Shakespeare!"
I went home and checked. Sure enough, there weren't any Harris's Hawks being flown in Europe until well over two centuries after Shakespeare's death.
This movie was filmed in Britain. The woodland birds that I heard on the soundtrack sounded like British birds to me. That was a pleasant surprise, since most movies feature Red-tailed Hawks and California Quails vocalizing, no matter on what continent the plots transpires.
There were all sorts of other nice details in this film that the producers got right--even down to the prevalence of filthy fingernails!
There are lots of falconers in Britain. Certainly, the Harris's Hawk is one of the most popular choices for falconers there, but he production team could have found any number of birds that would have been available there in Shakespeare's time, so Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard, Eurasian Goshawk, Saker, Peregrine, Eurasian Kestrel, and so forth.
