When the first Covid lockdown arrived, most people tried baking sourdough or following along with an exercise video. Candida Meyrick did something rather more unusual: she adopted a Harris Hawk fledgling, and the decision changed her life in ways she is still discovering. Candida, who had come through breast cancer treatment five years earlier, was at a crossroads when her youngest son George persuaded her to visit a falconry center. A few months later, a single surviving chick from a clutch needed a home, and Bird arrived at the family estate on Anglesey in Wales inside a cardboard box that seemed to bristle with energy despite its small size. Candida still remembers the way the 11-week-old fledgling stamped her feet inside the box, making her presence known from the very first moment.
Today, Bird has a wingspan of five feet, can fly faster than 35 miles per hour, and requires at least two hours of daily outdoor flight to stay healthy and sharp. Candida follows her across woodland, fields and sand dunes every single day, a routine she credits with rebuilding her physical health and her sense of identity after years of being defined by illness. She has written a memoir about the experience, describing the act of flying a hawk as a fierce and joyful declaration of being alive, the opposite of the passive patient role that cancer treatment demands. Bird has even demonstrated her own instincts for healing, after injuring her leg she sought out wild thyme and white willow, natural antiseptic and painkiller, apparently without ever being taught. For Candida, the daily flight has become more than exercise or hobby; it is proof that saying yes to something wild and unfamiliar can quietly give a person back to themselves.
