Birds of prey are shared muses of English author Helen Macdonald and Dunedin author Neville Peat.
They met at Otago Museum yesterday to get close to a New Zealand native falcon - albeit deceased.
Macdonald, who is in Dunedin as part of the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival was overjoyed on seeing the falcon.
''That's a cracker. She's lovely.''
Peat said the falcon, also known as the karearea, was ''among the rarest and fastest in our skies'' but could be seen in Dunedin, mostly Mt Allan and Sliver Peaks, and on the back of the New Zealand $20 bank note.
''Occasionally, they fly in the [Dunedin] Botanic Garden to do some window shopping and they come across to Orokonui [Ecosanctuary].''
Peat's 1992 book The Falcon and the Lark was written from the falcon's perspective and ''intermingled'' his own autobiography folklore.
Macdonald's book H is for Hawk was similar because it related ''human kind to the natural world'', Peat said.
Macdonald agreed.
''Both of us are thinking about that idea of what it's like to try and see through the eyes of an animal, like the falcon or a hawk. Trying to imagine that is fascinating,'' Macdonald said.
Her book was about trying to cope with the grief of the sudden death of her father in 2007 by training a goshawk.
She recommended against training a bird of prey to deal with loss.
''My Dad and I were very, very good friends, and when he was gone I got very lost and I spent so much time with this hawk - watching her fly and hunt - I forgot what it was like being a person.''
She became ''solitary and self-possessed'' - like the hawk.
''I wanted to be like the hawk, and I led this very strange feral existence. I was covered in mud and scratches and didn't wash my hair for weeks on end. It took a long time to realise I'd gone too far and I needed to come back and try and live in the human world.''
But living with a hawk was an ''intense and amazing'' experience.
The book has sold more than 135,000 copies in the United Kingdom and won the Costa Book of the Year and the Samuel Johnson Prize.
Macdonald has not indulged in bird-watching or falconry since it was released last July but planned to visit Otago Peninsula today to see an albatross.
''It's very exciting.''
Macdonald would appear in the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival at Toitu Otago Settlers Museum at 8.30pm tonight and Regent Theatre at 11.30am tomorrow.
The international book had been a ''lovely shock''.
''One of the reasons I began writing was so I could be a bit of a hermit, and I've met more people this year than I've ever met in my life, and they've all been lovely.''
