The 'secretive' Goshawks starring in Hollywood film

Shooting a Hollywood film was "very exciting and very different" for a pair who keep birds of prey.

Lloyd and Rose Buck trained four Goshawks, and borrowed a fifth, who between them played Mabel, in the Bafta-nominated film, H is for Hawk, which stars Claire Foy.

Lloyd became interested in birds when he was five years old, and got his first bird of prey, a Buzzard, as a teenager.

He said: "Goshawks are the most difficult bird of prey, or probably arguably bird, you could ever do filming with, because in the wild, they're so secretive. You're unlikely to ever see one in the wild, unless you're very lucky."

The film tells the story of a university professor, Helen, who is struggling with the death of her father.

Lloyd, from North Somerset, said on set he asked everyone to wear dark clothes to keep the birds calm.

He added: "I must have drove them mad, because I pretty much banned anyone from set who didn't have to be there.

The couple have filmed with David Attenborough on wildlife programmes previously but a movie set had many more people involved.

Rose said: "When we do natural history shoots, there are maybe five, six people tops, but on the film there were a hundred people; it's fantastically different, and it's a lot to think about with the birds."

Lloyd and Rose explained how actress, Claire Foy, had been a "natural" with the birds.

He said: "Remember, she's acting the part of Helen, while trying to handle a bird that she's only met two weeks before... That is really difficult, and she did amazing."

Foy told the Graham Norton Show on BBC One that filming with the birds was fun and that "I really miss them".

"You connect with them. It's like any animal, you connect and you have a relationship with them," she told Norton.

"And that means there's a love there."

The couple used imaginative methods to get the birds ready for filming in a busy part of Cambridge.

Their granddaughter, Maisy, said: "I had to hold a pretend camera, which my Grandad makes out of a milk bottle that he's painted... [I had to] stand and act like a cameraman would act, and get [the birds] used to the camera."

Maisy said she hoped to work on a film set again with her Grandparents if the opportunity ever comes up.

She added: "Hopefully it'll get more people interested because it's such an old practice, and it'll be really cool to have new generations doing it."

Lloyd described keeping birds of prey as a way of life, rather than a career or a job.

He said: "I've been passionate about wildlife and the natural world, and I've just always got that connection - I understand them, I think, and it's just by fate and by luck, I've ended up doing this with Rose for thirty-six years."

Rose added: "Our birds are our family, they're everything to us... we spend all our time with them, and we don't go on holiday - not together anyway."

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