Owned By An Eagle

Readers Union, 1977. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hulsmann, Eva. h/b 223 pages, condition is very good. Sixteen years ago, emerging from the boot of a battered saloon car, the gawky out-at-elbows form of a ten week old eaglet tottered into the life and heart of Gerald Summers. The adult golden eagle is one of the most, perhaps even the most, magnificent of birds, and Random is as fine a specimen as any ornithologist could hope for. This is the story of how the author took her in, cherished her and trained her. He few her free in the parks of East London, above the Hampshire coast, in the mountains of Wales, conscious each time that she might choose freedom, praying that she would not, yet resolved that the choice should be hers and hers alone. A golden eagle can be an awkward creature to have about the house. Random fought ferociously with the author's noble saluki, Tally; chased the odd job man round the kitchen; settled on top of a gasometer and remained there triumphantly until the cylinder was lowered to what she deemed a more convenient height; descended on neighbours and mounted truculent guard over their Sunday joint. Yet she also had her uses: routing an unwary burglar; starring on television and in an expedition to recapture the London Zoo's errant eagle, Goldie; exploding furiously from a cardboard box to put to fight a group of teddy boys who had the impertinence to threaten her master. Gerald Summers describes their life and adventures together with humour, zest and love. However harrowing the problems, nobody could read this book without to some degree wishing that they too could be owned by an eagle.