LITERATURE fans can take flight with Emily Brontë this spring and summer in a special exhibition in Haworth.

Wings of Desire has been inspired by an injured hawk nursed back to health in the mid-19th-century by the writer of Wuthering Heights.

Artist Kate Whiteford took Emily’s merlin hawk, Nero, as the starting point for an innovative project bringing together film, poetry, music and paintings.

Kate is renowned for “monumental” land art which combines art and archaeology to transform sites that have included remote Hebridean islands, the hills above Nairobi and inner-city Coventry.

The centrepiece of Wings of Desire is a film featuring footage of birds of prey in flight, the local landscape, and a birds-eye view of the flight to Top Withins.

The soundtrack includes Chloe Pirrie, who played Emily in 2016 Brontë biopic To Walk Invisible, reading from Emily’s poem The Caged Bird, and music from folk group The Unthanks.

The film can be seen in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where there will also be Kate’s framed watercolour pictures inspired by Aerial Archaeology photographs of the Yorkshire Dales.

Kate describes Wings of Desire as a meditation on the links between the hawk and Emily.

“The film brings you close to the animal, and close to Emily. When you see a hawk close-up it’s such a privilege. Emily will have needed to handle her bird.

“The film is another way of understanding Emily as a person. It’s to change our perception of Emily as a writer closeted in the parsonage – she ran free on the moors.

“Caged Bird is about longing for liberty, free of your chains – it’s just one of Emily’s poems touch on the idea of escape and freedom and flying. life.

“There’s a stunning painting by Emily of the hawk. She was a very gifted artist – the observation in the painting had to come from life.”

SMJ Falconry will be at the Brontë Parsonage Museum on Sunday May 27 from 10am to 4pm with birds of prey displays and handling.

On weekdays in the half-term holidays there will be birds of prey-themed family activities from 10am to 5.30pm, including short guided walks, museum trails and ‘hands on history’ sessions. Flights of Fancy is a children’s craft session on Wednesday May 30, from 11am to 4pm.

Visit bronte.org.uk for further information.