Flight of Friendly Falcons

                        There have been several times when I’ve advised anyone to stop what they are doing and proceed to GO, collect your $200, and just follow my suggestion.

                        This experience fits nicely into that Category.

                        You just need to be comfortable with pieces of raw, somewhat bloody, chicken in your hand. No worries, there is a glove.

                                    The backstory.

                                    We are now up in Southern Vermont, near Mount Snow, visiting Barb, Paula’s sister, for her 80^th Birthday (!) Barb brought Paula and me over to New Hampshire for rendezvous with some birds. They were big birds. Falcons and Hawks to be exact.

                                    We were at Monadnock (Moe-nad-nock) Falconry in Temple, New Hampshire where we met Mahood (a Harris’ Hawk /Parabuteo unicinctus) and his best friend, Henry (a Human/Homo sapiens). Together, all five of us went on what is called by Henry, a ‘Hawk Walk’. This is an hour and a half spent in a fully immersive experience learning about Hawks, Falcons, and Raptors in general and…… trying to help Mahood kick up some snacks!

                                    There is so much going on at this point that I should probably stop and explain this unusually symbiotic nature of the relationship between Henry (representing all Falconers over the last thousand or so years) and Mahood (representing several species of Raptors spanning that same time period.) You first need to know that Mahood and his kin can fly away any time that they would like to. Their hunting skills have not been diminished in any way by their relatively new partnership with the Falconer. The neat part is that they work together as a team to flush out tasty critters from wherever these little snacks are hiding. Mahood flew around from tree to tree, from gloved hand to gloved hand, back to a tree, up into the sky, back to a tree, back to a hand, many, many times over our Hawk Walk. It was fascinating to watch Mahood spy something in the grasses and give Henry “The Look” as if to say “Hey Big Guy! Go see if you can kick him out for me!”

                                    And if You don’t want to be on the receiving end of “The Look”, you best proceed and do what the hawk tells you to do!

                        That is where this bond takes place. The Hawk eventually learns that their Human will help find food. And, let’s be honest, it’s a big, bad world out there and even though most of these Raptors are at the top of the Food Chain, survival in the wilderness is still hard. So, even though they can absolutely fly away any time that they would like to, there is a relative comfort level of safety and sustenance that they enjoy. If they didn’t, then away they would go!

Back in 1959 in Detroit, I had a parakeet. Apparently, he did not like his surroundings because one day when Mom was cleaning his cage (there’s the difference?) he ‘flew the coop’ and was never seen again! Maybe that is the difference…. Caged animals are just that, they are not free… these raptors, even though they have ‘homes’ with their Handlers, are set free several times every day and could join up with Skippy, my old parakeet, any time that they would like to.

                                    So we were quite thrilled when Mahood came back to our gloved hand/arm! The glove is quite necessary as these birds have quite the grip which includes those sharp, pointy parts of their talons (feet). These are their first means of offense and defense. Those awesome looking sharp beaks are primarily there to rip through any tasty morsels that may come their way. And…. here’s a neat bit of Falcon Food Facts…. They store their ‘catch’ in their gullet until they are finished hunting. They then retreat to the relative safety of a big pine tree (or wherever they find) and do their best to hide themselves while they finish digesting supper. This way they do not expend energy on either activity (hunting or digesting) and just wait until the appropriate time.

                                    Henry was the perfect host as this is both his vocation and avocation. Henry’s story is as interesting as his flying cohorts. After reading in an undergraduate Latin(!) course, De arte venandi cum avibus, or Concerning the Art of Hunting with Birds, Henry decided to pursue this avian art of falconry. Henry was fascinated by the way that Fredrick the Great, (in the13^th Century) took this activity serious enough to write an entire treatise on these birds’ habits, eccentricities, and even their personalities! This in turn lead Henry to a Travelling Fellowship with the Ireland School of Falconry where he apprenticed with some of the finest Falconers in Europe. Henry now has his own set of apprentices as he has attained the lofty 😊 status of Master Falconer!

                        After our Hawk Walk Henry brought us inside to meet Pitch, a Red-Tailed Hawk and Pete, a Great Horned Owl. The Monadnock Falconry does get several injured birds a year and their goals are to repair and rehabilitate them so that they can return to the wild. In the case of Pete, he was found by a policeman twelve years ago and was unfortunately removed (with the best intentions) from the scene thus preventing his parents from any attempt to care for the little white fuzz-ball. Pete is now a resident of Monadnock as he had ‘imprinted’ on a human at an early age.

                        They (and a host of others being rehabilitated) are fortunately under the care of Henry Walters and his team at Monadnock Falconry. You too can experience this exclusive encounter with these magnificent birds! We had one of those “Once in a Lifetime” experiences with Henry and his friends in the hills of Southern New Hampshire…..

……..as I stated in the beginning….. Stop what you are doing and……

www.monadnockfalconry.com Located in Temple, New Hampshire