Berlin Calling Blackie

From Berlin's Gatow airfield to R.A.F.'s London headquarters last week went a cry for reinforcements to fight off saboteurs. Thousands of starlings flocking to Gatow were menacing the props of airlift planes. Airmen knew that HQ had just the weapons to handle them--a squadron of fierce falcons trained to keep Britain's airfields clear of gulls, plovers, rooks and other airborne pests.

In 1941, when wild falcons began attacking their carrier pigeons, the R.A.F. had almost brought British falconry to a full stop. Then an ardent falconer and artillery private named Ronald Stevens persuaded the brass that falcons could be turned to their own uses. Stevens and his birds were drafted and put to work against enemy pigeons.

Last week at Coltishall airfield in Norfolk, Blackie, a prize tercel (male falcon), his sister Collette and two other lady falcons, Odette and Isolde, were hard at work at new peacetime jobs. Eight other falcons were busy at Driffield in Yorkshire. Each day a thickly gloved trainer took them out on the field and gingerly removed their hoods. Then (in falconer's lingo) "they rang up from the fist, attained their pitch at 1,000 or more feet up, waited on until the game was served to them," and swooped to the kill at speeds up to 300 m.p.h. One flight a day has so far been enough to persuade other birds that Coltishall and Driffield are poor places to linger. Gatow's starlings might well feel the same when Blackie got there.

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