I n the Smederevo settlement of Leštar, in a spacious fam- ily home, lives Ana Popović with her husband Đorđe and children Milica (6) and Ilija (2). She has just a few exmas remaining to graduate in economics, but she decided to utilise her artistic inclinations. Along with her friend Valentina, her Đorđe and sister-in-law Ivana, she be- ganmakingunique,hand-madewomen’shandbags.That’s nice, but it’s not as unusual as her other love – the one she has for birds. She breeds falcons and believes that it will one day become a serious profession. In her yard, on spe- cial plinths, ve birds of prey stand calmly. We couldn’t dif- ferentiate between them until Ana explained to us that a falcon has black eyes and a hawk’s are orange, the rst has a round head, the second triangular, the hawk is in- telligent, while the falcon is so perfect and fast that he doesn’t need to be clever.
A falcon has black eyes and a hawk’s are orange, the rst has a round head, the second triangular, the hawk is intelligent, while the falcon is so perfect and fast that he doesn’t need to be clever Oči sokola su crne, a jastreba narandžaste, prvom je glava okrugla, drugom trouglasta, jastreb je inteligentan, a soko toliko savršen i brz da mu pamet i ne treba
THE GREAT FALCON IS DOWNED BY THE MOSQUITO
“This is Persa, a chicken hawk, who’s a dangerous fe- male and a real savage. There is also the peaceable falcon Čeda, followed by Roki, who was named after surviving a real boxer’s knockout when hitting a window, while Moki is a desperado and cowboy of a breed that grows very close to man and can be kept in the house instead of a par- rot,”says Ana (33), presenting each bird to us individually. Unlike this tame cowboy, she adds, there is Guja the falcon, who is very angry, and named accordingly, and who is mix of a grey, northern and steppe falcon. And Čiki - he’s a genuine grey falcon like the one from epic poems. We wonder how it is that they all stand still, detached, almost paying no attention to us. All except Persa, the pro- tector of the ock, who aps his wings and gives us side- ways looks. Ana explains that the birds are not dangerous when attached well with a special tether. Nevertheless, she warns us not to make sudden moves. In our ignorance we think it must be cold for them as they stand still outside, but a smiling Ana convinces us that the opposite is the case. These lords of the sky and heights love snow and cold, and nd it hard to handle the summer heat and mosquitoes. “A falcon infected by a mosquito most often dies. Our Persa is one of the few who survived a bite of a tiger mos- quito. Since then she’s been unruly like this. Falcons are more resilient, while hawks fall as though mowed down, and it isn’t well known that this kills a lot of other birds in nature, mostly sparrow-hawks,” she says knowingly. Until recently they also had a kestrel, a type of fal- con that’s adjusted so well that it also lives in cities. They found it injured, treated it, and released it back into nature. “That’s an interesting bird. It nests in hollows of tall buildings, feeds on tiny rodents, eld mice and voles, and if there are none of them they will hunt sparrows, bluetits or nches. They hunt by hovering in the air, observing their prey on the ground, then suddenly descending to a lower height. They then stop again momentarily, eye their prey oncemore,thenlaunchalightning-fastattack,”explainsAna.
PREDATORS LOVE WITH THEIR STOMACHS
The whole story with the birds started by accident. Ana’s wedding usher, Bojan, received a grey falcon as a gift and brought it to his brother and sister-in-law, and through
| 81
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator