FFON co-founders, John and Margaret Cooper recently attended the BFC (British Falconers’ Club) meeting in Hungerford, held at “The Bear Hotel”. At the dinner in the evening John was presented with the BFC Silver Falcon Award for his work on the diseases and veterinary care of raptors over many decades.
John was first introduced to the world of birds of prey when, in 1959, he consulted Maxwell Knight (MK) about an injured kestrel. MK introduced John to Paul Jacklin, a falconer member of the Camberley Natural History Society, and it all developed from there.
The citation on John’s certificate is reproduced below. In his acceptance speech John recounted how in 1969, following his marriage to Margaret, they lived only a few miles “up the road” at Compton. Margaret worked for a while in Hungerford – the first lady solicitor the town had ever seen!
John also described how in those days falconers found it convenient to meet him at The Bear Hotel and, usually over coffee, discreetly hand over samples from their birds for John to examine and, if appropriate, prescribe treatment.
John concluded his speech with a reading from his diary from November 1969.
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Lt Col. Guy Thompson Silver Falcon Award
In recognition of a life’s work in the veterinary science relating to birds of prey which has enhanced global conservation of raptors both in the wild and those flown by falconers worldwide, for which falconers express their gratitude.
FFON. Written by nature detectives. 
Thanks. Looks good. J & M
On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 at 20:22, The Frightened Face of Nature (FFON) wrote:
> Simon H King posted: ” Prof John E Cooper and Margaret E Cooper FLS FFON > co-founders, John and Margaret Cooper recently attended the BFC (British > Falconers’ Club) meeting in Hungerford, held at “The Bear Hotel”. At the > dinner in the evening John was presented with” >
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• Further to Prof. Cooper’s interest in the biology of raptors, the New York Times reports an extraordinary and rather sad story of a relentless quest to keep up with the need for veterinary attention to the black kites of New Delhi. They are constantly threatened with injury by their namesake – kites. Kite-flying is a national enthusiasm in India, but the use of string bizarrely adorned with splinters of glass leads to dozens of the birds being injured each week, often fatally.
At least the black kites remain numerous, but since the interesting opportunity to study natural selection on their eyesight will never be financed it would be better if the dangerous kites were less numerous, as chinese lanterns have been banned in Britain to protect cows.
Valerie Jeffries.
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Thanks, Valerie for sharing that news with fellow FFON readers. I recall watching a programme some years ago which contained a brief snippet of kite-flying with sharp objects attached to the string to cut a fellow kite-flyers string and bring their kite to the ground. I think it was filmed in India (where kite-flyers fly their kites in built up areas and compete for aerial supremacy!) Once again, nature seems to be on the receiving end of our questionable antics.
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Very interesting – thanks for publicising this! Regards Dafydd
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