with J.A. Baker

Peregrine in the original Latin meant foreigner, outsider.

As well as ‘pilgrim’, peregrine in its original Latin could also mean ‘foreigner’ or ‘outsider’. Baker was, according to his friends, his wife and his editor, a natural loner — and looking at his life experiences it’s not so hard to see how this aspect of his character came to define him.

pp. 146,147

Here, the etymology of Extravagant:

When Derek Ratcliffe mentioned Baker’s work in his own guide to the peregrine falcon, he called it a ‘remarkable’ book, if written in a ‘somewhat extravagant style’. ‘Extravagant’ is perhaps the best description of The Peregrine — it was a term favoured by Henry David Thoreau who knew its Latin roots from extra (outside of, beyond) and vagari (to wander). To be ‘extravagant’, as Thoreau had it, was to ‘wander beyond the boundaries’.

pp. 146,147

And where does the phrase take by surprise originate?

Richard Blome in his seventeeth-century Hawking, or Faulconry described how a falconer could attract a kite by releasing an owl with a fox’s tail tied to one leg – a sight that lures the kite to investigate out of curiosity: ‘when the Kyte is descended pretty near her, then let fly your Hawk, and the Kyte perceiving the surprize, doth endeavour to preserve herself by mounting up.’ So it’s possible that Baker was right, and ‘take by surprise’ does have falconry roots – as ‘surprise’ derives from the Old French suprendre, ‘to overtake’ , itself from the Latin prehendere, ‘to seize, grasp, and thus sounds quite hawkish; or least like the sort of language that could have developed out of a hunting term. (Most of our English words that relate to falconry come from French: after the Norman invasion of the eleventh century, the French-speaking ruling class replaced the English used in hunting sports with those of their native tongues.

pg. 108, 109

Saunders, Hetty. My House of Sky: The life and work of J.A. Baker. Lower Dairy, Toller Fratrum, Dorset: Little Toller Books, 2017.