Manuka wasn’t my bird by any means, I was just lucky to have helped out for a short while My friend is the falconer and I get to tag along sometimes. One day maybe I’ll have my own bird, I’ve seen some harris hawks in action and they seem like great birds.

Myself, I’ve had my hen Harris’s hawk for fifteen years and don’t anticipate a change anytime soon. I have no doubt that she could do well on her own in the wild, but so far she has come back. My wife did describe one incident, in taking her on a hunt in the sort of country she grew up in, and how she seemed to be weighing things between hooking up with a group of wild Harris’s hawks and coming back to Diane.