from H is for hawk, Helen Macdonalds

Grieving her father’s sudden death, Helen McDonald picks up her new goshawk. The breeder opens a small box: a furious juvenile erupts in a blaze of sunlight, wings thrashing, like a turkey in a butcher shop, scattering goals and dazzling everywhere.

They check the ring number – wrong bird. The second box reveals the correct, larger, hawk Helen, wind wrecked and desperate, begs the breeder to swap them. He refuses; money is exchanged…