I Go Hawking…Again and Again!
This week I got to go out twice. The first outing was a night outing. This was much easier than my first day time outing. Essentially we walked along and L used a flashlight to direct Manuka’s attention to prey. She was alert and her head swiveled to follow the beam of light. She caught a rabbit during this outing and, unlike the first rabbit I had seen her catch, this one was destined to be hawk food. Since Manuka was successful so early in the evening (L told me that at times he’d been out till 11 pm looking for prey) we went back to his house and then he let me transport Manuka from the garage to the “cage” he had built for her at the side of his house. I was a little nervous but it was quite a thrill. I was slightly surprised at her weight, though of course she had just eaten.
Once we got to her “cage” — think more of an aviary here since there is room for her and several humans and it has two parts to it and several perches — I had another treat. L let me train her to come to my “fist”. Literally, I had on a falconer’s glove and then would “present” my fist and shine my light on it. She was to then jump or fly down to it and she’d find a small piece of meat which I had hidden there. We did this a number of times. She spread her feathers in my eyes once. I was more amused than startled. Manuka seemed much more focused than our first outing, it was a thrill to see be with a hawk and watch it do its thing. Very majestic bird.
Fast forward to today. This afternoon it was L, myself, and his friend K and K’s brother. A party of 4 humans, one to handle Manuka and us 3 to be bird dogs again. I carried one perch and the extra falconer’s glove. Manuka today, sadly, did not show the focus of our night time session. She wanted to go to the trees again and perch there rather than stay with us. She missed a rabbit and then another. Finally she ended up at a tree near the abandoned shack again. This is the scene of tragedy according to L. She caught a small lizard and flew with it to the roof. Why is this a tragedy? Because it showed she was still suspicious of L and wanted to keep her prey away from him. That suspicion, L said, was caused by a blunder he had made when first hunting with Manuka when he took her prey away too soon from her.
When he explained this to us it made me think of how falconry was a distillation of nature and nurture. Manuka is a natural hunter, yet L could show her a few things before he released her to the wild. Manuka’s suspicions were born of a few mistakes L had made when training her. But those mistakes stuck with her and was now causing problems. This is how it is with wild birds, cause and effect show up clearly. It drives home how humans too are animals influenced by nature and nurture.
As we “bird dog people” walked back towards the car. We discussed how it had been a great day dispite Manuka’s behavior. Just being in her presence was inspiring, and the day and the excercise (you try trampling around bushes for hours) was great.
In the end I did get to use the glove again… K took some pictures of me holding Manuka, it was posed of course, not a bird I had raised, but it was still thrilling enough that it’s going to be a picture I treasure for a long time.
