Now I know how we can rid our cities of crows. I have a wooded area behind my apartment where they gather to caw about their day, and all morning they have been especially raucous as they settle there for a short rest before taking off on another forage. Then suddenly, quiet. I looked up from my desk and saw they had disappeared. Then I saw why. Another kind of bird had frightened them away. I checked my bird book and decided that it was a falcon -- or perhaps a hawk -- settling down to his feast, a luckless pigeon. I wonder where he came from, if he is a professional or an amateur, if he is lost. I hope he likes it here and decides to stay.

Hunting with falcons was a popular daimyo sport, and occasionally in scrolls or screens that picture battles or feudal processions, you will see the attending falconer carrying a bird on his wrist. "Taka-giri," hawking or falconry, has a long history; it is mentioned in one of Japan's earliest chronicles, the "Nihonshoki," which was compiled in the 9th century.

There is a story of the early days of our capital city, about Ota Dokan, the local lord who selected a small fishing village called Edo to become the site of his palace/fortress. He was known as a rough, country warrior who was a little short of court refinement. One day when he was out for some taka-giri, there was a sudden rainstorm and he asked a peasant girl for a raincoat. Instead, she handed him yellow roses, a reference to an appropriate Chinese poem (and identifying her, perhaps, as an exiled court lady adept at such conversations; her skill or beauty may have aroused the jealousy of some important lady-in-waiting). Ota, chagrined that he had no idea of the proper response, vowed to study classical pursuits while maintaining the way of the warrior, thereby making Edo a cultural center in the wilderness, and a good choice when a new capital for the country was being sought by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first of the shoguns. Of course, he never saw the girl again. In Japan, very few stories end with marriage and living happily ever after.