Lorant de Bastyai

Lorant de Bastyai was a member of the international falconry community. He is perhaps best known in the United Kingdom for establishing the Welsh Hawking Club (Clwb Hebogwyr Cymru). He was also an honorary member of the British Falconers Club, the Hawking Club of Great Britain, the North American Falconry Club, the Austrian, German and French Associations. He was born in Szeged, Hungary, in 1910. His father's (Áládar Bastyai Holtzer) love of hunting, horses and racing pigeons fuelled Lorant's early passion for nature and birds in particular. A chance encounter with a visiting British falconer launched a career that would span 60 years and have a profound impact in reviving a sport that had become all but extinct.

Background

According to the English falconer Major C R E Radclyffe, "In the summer of 1902, my friend Prince Odescalchi asked me to introduce falconry to Hungary. It seems ironic that British falconers were asked to reintroduce falconry to the lands where it spread across Europe, brought from the east by the Huns and Magyars, first began over 1.000 years ago. In early 20th-century Britain, the sport was also virtually unknown, and Radclyffe was one of only a handful of active falconers. He sent Richard Best, falconer to the famous Old Hawking Club, along with members of the infant British Falconer's Club and a team of peregrines, to Prince Odescalchi, where they enjoyed good hawking on the Hungarian plains near Tuszér.