Sometimes Silent

Today we took Manuka out for her last hunt in captivity. We went a different, longer way into the field near the river. L kept her on fist the whole time and K and I tried to scare game her way. K flushed out 2 rabbits but they got away. As the time went on L let me take his place holding Manuka on top of a small hill and he took my spot being a “bird dog”.

He was successful and flushed a rabbit out in our line of sight. I let Manuka go and she swooped down magnificently.

Once she became preoccupied with eating, L took her jesses and bracelets off. Then K and I took our turns petting her goodbye, L of course did so as well.

Then we retreated to another small hill and watcher over her in case a dog were to come up upon her.

Eventually she stopped eating and dragged the rest of the rabbit into a bush. Where she also stayed for awhile. Every now and then she had looked our way when she was eating so we wondered what she would do at the end.

Turns out she just stayed in the bush. No dramatic sail off into the sunset ending.

L had had an id bracelet put on her in case she was found by someone else and needed help. We guessed that if she did permanently adopt the field as her hunting ground that we could id her from that.

She would be wild again if we saw her next, L said it would not take long at all for her to fear humans again.

We walked back and occasionally talked about L’s new hawk, a male juvenile. We might be hunting with him in a month’s time. Also he was hoping to gain another bird or he might be helping to rehabiliate a peregrine.

Bye Manuka, the first hawk I got to help fly and train, live long, have little birdies, and may your prey never get away!

Technorati tags: falconry, hawking

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.

Technorati tags: hawking, falconry

You might say I’m a bit of a Rennaissance gal, I fence, I’ve done archery, and have had an interest in falconry. I blame the movie “LadyHawke” for that last bit as well as having seen a demonstration while at my sister’s Girl Scout troop’s Medieval Times Dinner outing.

Well today I got to go out with a new friend who trains hawks. Last night I attended a fantastic dinner party hosted by this friend and his fiance who is a trained chef. Another chef, leaving town to become the personal chef of the owner of the Venetian, also attended and cooked for us… terrific food and great conversation all around. Of course, we stayed up late so I almost begged off going hawking today.

I’m glad I didn’t. It was great. My friend has a red tailed hawk named Manuka which he has been training to hunt. My boyfriend, he and I went out with the hawk to a field and brush area near a river. For the most part my boyfriend and I acted like hunting dogs and tried to flush out rabbits so that Manuka could spot them. Part of her training was also to get her used to using a perch provided by my friend so that she would learn to stay near him.

”

After much bushwacking, we flushed out a rabbit and Manuka almost caught it before it got to its warren. After some more explorations near an abandoned shack, another was discovered in a rusty appliance, it launched out of it and Manuka did catch that one. It was interesting to see that the rabbit itself was unharmed, Manuka’s talons had not punctured it but had just closed upon its neck, not tight enough to choke it. My friend distracted Manuka with food tidbits so he could get the rabbit away.

Unfortunately for the rabbit it was then to be used as training bait. We did that excercise so that Manuka would associate being on a perch with being able to spot a rabbit. The rabbit, oddly enough got away. We weren’t sure why and I didn’t have a clear view of it. It was decided that Manuka may have been disheartened by then and had gotten used to rabbits getting away from her while on the ground.

The whole experience was great fun though and made me appreciate hawks and that we still had wildlife in the world and that the predator / prey cycle was still very much alive and also, balancing.

We called it a day and went back to my friend’s house, where we had left overs from the night before… still quite delicious! Perhaps oddly enough, they also own a pet rabbit. This rabbit had been purchased by a friend of theirs to be hawk bait and possibly hawk food but ended up being adopted. It reminded me of the other bunny I saw today. Rabbits, pets or meat? One rabbit is one, one rabbit is potentially the other. For us humans we can make that decision. For Manuka, the choice is obvious.

Technorati tags: hawking, falconry