The Benefits and Limits of Artifice

A repost from March 2007

Upon first inspection, the above picture seems absurd: an African Martial Hawk named "Zulu" flying across a field to pounce on a toy bunny which has a slot in its back filled with a morsel of meat.

Is this some kind of weird alternative to true hunting dreamed up by some misguided animal rights lunatic?

Well, actually, no. The eagle is a resident of the Eagle Heights Bird of Prey Centre in Kent England, and my notes say that the bunny is part of the public display that the Centre puts on for visitors. Though the bunny is a bit comical, the string that is tied to its body is used to pull it across the grass at a leisurely pace so that the eagle has to gauge speed and distance properly in order to get a proper "kill and fill" from this plush toy.

Those of us who hunt with hawks and dogs are not above such artifice, especially in the off-season when the goal is to keep our animals fit and sharp.

In the off-season, a greyhound owner may course his dogs to a white plastic bag tied to a string that is zipping around a pulley-course set up in a back pasture.

A terrier owner may run his dogs through a go-to-ground tunnel in the back yard, with a rat or squirrel safely in a cage at the stop end to approximate true quarry.

A falconer may fly a balloon or kite with a pigeon in harness at the end of a string in order to get his or her falcon to fly higher and develop sharper skills.

The tricks we have developed to achieve improved results with our animals are a marvel. That said, I sometime worry about the artifice.

Go-to-ground is not true terrier work -- it is boring and predictable, and there is no element of wood craft, no real physical output for the human, no element of risk for the dog. Above all, it is not hunting.

Coursing plastic bags with greyhounds is more of the same -- a way to keep the dog in shape and perhaps "explode the code within" the dog, but it is not hunting.

I feel a bit differently about training falcons with kites and balloons. Here there is an element of risk -- the risk that the falcon will fly away over the horizon. Though training a falcon with a kite and balloon is not quite hunting, it does have an element of true risk that I can appreciate.

The bottom line is that artifice has its place in training, but never get confused that it is even remotely equivalent to real work.

A Hawk-Eye View of Your Farms

It's a useful thing to have an aerial map of the farms you work, especially when talking with a farmer about his property or adjoining fields.

Simply go to Google Maps and enter your farm's zip code to get the approximate location and zoom in and out from there.

You can save the shot by right-clicking and you can print them out as well.
Enter any address, and you can see it from the air, and zoom in with some detail.

I use a very low-cost iPhone app called "Pinbox" to drop a pin on settes and other features, which helps locate dens quickly and illuminates underground geology.  I have also used the app to help me figure my way out of the woods and fields if I get lost (some of the farms I hunt are quite big). 

Knowing where water and woods are in relation to field crops, roads, and outbuildings can also give you an idea of where fox and racoon may be bunkered up.

I keep my permissions and aerial maps together, taped up underneath the lid of my veterinary box which is always in the car when I hunt the dogs.

Vultures Are Vomiters, Not Raptors

For years, it was believed that all vultures were raptors, members of the order Falconiformes.

In 1994, however, it was discovered that vultures on this side of the Atlantic actually share a common ancestor with storks and ibises. Now, New World vultures are recognized as Ciconiiformes, in the family Cathartidae, while European, African, and Asian vultures are recognized as Old World vultures (family Accipitridae, subfamily Aegypiinae). There are 15 species of Old World Vultures and 7 Species of New World Vultures.

What is a buzzard?

In the U.S. vultures are often called "buzzards," but in actually a buzzard is a European member of the hawk family. The European buzzard, Buteo buteo, is closely related to the American red tailed hawk.

Almost all the vultures you see in the U.S. are Turkey Vultures. Black Vultures also exist in the South, but they do not have the graceful flight of the Turkey Vulture and are not as common. California Condors (a type of vulture) have been retintroduced in California and Arizona, but are so rare you are unlikely to see one in your entire life unless you make a special trip to the remote areas where they have been released.

Turkey Vultures got their name from their bald red heads. The lack of feathers on their head are an adaptive mechanism -- when a vulture is eating a dead animal, it often sticks its head inside the carcass to reach the meat. Feathers on the head would trap unwanted flesh and blood, along with bacteria. A bald head, then, is an adaptive mechanism for cleanliness, as is the vulture's habit of urinating down its own legs -- another way to clean off clinging bits of flesh and bacteria.

Turkey Vultures have few predators, other than man. Their nests are scratched out of bare patches of soil on cliff faces and out of the rotting wood at the tops of broken trees. They will often nest in the sides of abandoned farm buildings as well -- old silos being a favorite location. Vulture nests are subject to predation by raccoons, but the vulture as a fairly effective defensive mechanism -- it vomits up a large masses of semi-digested meat along with very acidic digestive juices. The smell of Turkey Vulture Vomit is rather astounding, and the stomach acid is acidic enough to burn a raccoon's eyes.

You will rarely see Turkey Vulture flying in the early morning, as they launch themselves from trees, cliffs, powerlines, barns and silos only after the morning air has warmed up. A Vulture will fly into a thermal uplift, ride it up in a wide circle, and then glide across the sky at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour gently falling until they reach the next thermal which they in turn ride up again -- repeating the process adinfinitum. On a good day, a Turkey Vulture can glide for four of five hours without flapping its wings.

The feet of a Turkey Vulture are very weak and are built a bit like a chicken's -- they cannot catch small prey like a rabbit. Road kill is their primary food source, and the rise in deer, raccoon, possum and groundhog populations has meant a rise in turkey vultures. Vultures are also common on river banks where they scavenge washed-up fish.

A Battle of Peregrine vs. Starling

Guess who wins?
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The Coolest Man in the World Has Throat Cancer

Over at the Querencia blog, Steve Bodio mourns that his mongolian friend, Aralbai, who was deemed to be "the coolest man in the world" by Field and Stream magazine, has throat cancer at the very young age of 54, and he is refusing chemo and radiation. Read the rest here.
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Christmas Bird Count Illuminates an Old Fable

The National Audubon Society is in the midst of its annual "Christmas Bird Count," which is mostly an unscientific "bird feeder" bird count done when those birds which are at greatest risk of decline (i.e. neo-tropical migrants including most grassland birds) are actually down south in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

In short, this is the wrong time of year to count birds that are truly at risk!

That said, the 111-years worth of data collected by the "Christmas Bird Count" does have some use, if for no other reason than to prove that one of the biggest fables about Bald Eagles and Osprey is more than a small lie.

What's the story? Simple: that Bald Eagles and Osprey were pushed to the edge of extinction by DDT.

Not quite true. 

In fact, Bald Eagles and Osprey were pushed to the edge of extinction by bullets and leghold traps long before DDT showed up on the scene. See this previous post for more information about that.

This is NOT to say that the ban on DDT was not good for birds, only that the notion that Bald Eagles and Osprey were specifically driven off the map by DDT is simply not true, and obscures an important story about the value of the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

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Go-to-Ground Lurcher and Hawk

A nice little video from T.S. Wright showing Cog, the Hybrid Falcon, and Loki the Lurcher digging a Jackrabbit out of a hole after a long flight.  

This is real four-species interaction, and real three-species partnership!

Jack Rabbits are actually a type of hare and do not den underground (neither do Cottontail rabbits), but will bolt into a hole if chased in hot pursuit.   I am not sure what made the original hole, but given the area, it would have to be badger, fox or prairie dog I would think.

• Related Links:
  ** Jack Rabbit Hunt, Mead, Kansas ~1912
  ** Harris Hawk X Golden Eagle
  ** American Jack Rabbit History. 

California Para- Hawking Video

Source: Litetouch films

I am sure there is something more awesome than this, but I could not find it today. Maybe tomorrow.

This flight is over the Torrey Pines golf course and Blossom Valley in California.
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How Fast is a Peregrine Falcon's Dive?

Real measurement.
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It Takes More Than Money to Get a Falcon

This amusing ad is now on local TV, but I am going to use it as an instruction piece too.

You see, you can't actually own a falcon just because you have a little cash in hand.  That's how falcons, hawks and eagles are different from parrots or dogs.

Owning a falcon requires a person to first pass a Federal Falconry exam, and then take at least two years of apprenticeship with a master falconer or general class falconer in order to get a state and federal license to own a bird.

Before a bird is in hand, there must be at least two mew inspections (one by the master or general class falconer, and another by state or federal officials), and enough paperwork must be filled out to make a college student wilt.

The result: falconers tend to be dedicated fanatics who put their birds first and who go to incredible lengths to keep their charges healthy, both physically and mentally.

A falconry license is dependent upon the routine free flight of the bird, which means the owner and the bird not only have to train, they have to be in such tight sync that during hunting season the owner can tell you what his bird weighs within the weight of a penny.

What about Parrots and Pit Bulls? A very different story. Anyone with cash can buy these animals, and the results show.

In the world of large parrots we find a lot of birds as vicious as Harpy Eagles, feather-plucking themselves bald, and generally driven mad with boredom. Too many (perhaps most) are dead within a year or two of purchase, despite the fact that these birds should live to 30 years or more.

As for Pit Bulls, about half are given up to "shelters" within their first year or two of life. Once in the shelter system, Pit Bulls have little chance of being adopted out, and a 90 percent chance of being killed for no other reason than young fools are led to believe that a Pit Bull is "just like any other dog," and that if they are "good people" they will be sure to raise a dog that will be no more trouble than a hamster or a Labrador Retriever.

And the result: almost a million Pit Bulls are killed in this country every year -- more dead Pit Bulls than the total number of dogs registered by the AKC and the UKC... over 40 million pounds of dead Pit Bulls being tossed in land fills and incinerators every year.

And why? Because idiots keep breeding these dogs, and ignorants keep adopting these dogs based on a theory that all dogs are the same, that all dogs are blank slates, and that a young dilettante's love can cure all and make everything right.

Falconers and hawkers know better. They know a bird of prey is not a Zebra Finch, and that a Red-tail Hawk is not a Budgie or a Cockatiel.

Yes, a falconer may grumble at the expense, paperwork, and length of apprenticeship required to own and fly a raptor, but in the end they wear the right as a badge of honor, status and commitment.

The right to fly a falcon or hawk does not come with cash. It comes with a demonstration, over time, that the person manning the bird has the discipline and knowledge to fly a happy and healthy bird. Is there anything more beautiful than that? Is there anything better than the fact that this is NOT a "cash and carry" bird?
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And Then God Came Down Like an Eagle

From The Vancouver Sun comes this real-life story about a poodle and a Golden Eagle and a little divine intervention:

She's a vagabond toy poodle, named May by SPCA staff because earlier this month she fell out of the sky and landed in the grounds of Sechelt's Shorncliffe Nursing Home.

How she came to be flying over the nursing home is explained by the deep talon marks in her back and sides, showing she was probably the unwilling passenger of a hungry eagle that had picked her up but eventually found her 18 pounds too much to hold on to.

May, her ribs broken, her body lacerated, was found by nursing staff May 2 and delivered to the Sunshine Coast SPCA.

The fall injured her, says BC SPCA official Lorie Chortyk, but the whole unnerving ordeal likely saved her life.

"Ironically, if it hadn't been for this we might never have found her," said Chortyk.

She carried no identification and her generally poor condition indicated she had been wandering without care for some time before attracting the eagle's attention.

"She's been a stray. There's been severe neglect, and who knows how long she's been out there. We estimate she's six years old but her nails were growing into her pads and her teeth are badly decayed," said Chortyk.

This is Why Goshawks Thrive in Forest

You want Ninja? Nothing is more Ninja that a Goshawk!  Hat tip to Teddy M. for sending this!
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Maryland Goshawks

Watch the full episode. See more Outdoors Maryland.

This is a nice little video, which I have seen on TV in the past, but could not find on the Internet.  Problem cured!
Steve Huy, who is featured in the first segment, is (or was) a reader of this blog.  When he first emailed me a few years back, I mentioned that, as odd as it might seem, there was a Gyrfalcon (an Arctic species) hunting free on one of my farms -- no leg jesses at all that I could see.  His first question:  Was this right off New Design Road?  Yep, it was.  Steve know his stuff and does service work for science and conservation trapping and banding Maryland Saw-whets in the Fall.

The second clip is about Maryland Natural Resource officers who are supported, in large part, by state hunting and trapping licenses happily paid by people like me.  The simple truth is that we have the best wildlife managers in the world, and conservation law enforcement is a core part of the equation.
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A Wild Caught "Goopers" Hawk?

Is this a hybrid "Goopers" Hawk, or just an older, western-range Gos Hawk?

A Gooper's Hawk? What's a Goopers Hawk?

Simple enough: a hybrid bird that is half Goshawk and half Cooper's Hawk.

The bird seen here was wild-caught on Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, and has the shocking red eye of a Cooper's Hawk, but the body size and color of a Goshawk.

It could be that this is an escaped man-initiated hybrid mating, but it could also be a wild hybrid as the birds overlap in range and will, quite obviously, cross-mate on occasion.  Or it could be, simply, a slighly-smaller, older adult, western-phase colored Goshawk.

The person who trapped this bird said it 'cacked' like a Goshawk, not a Coopers, which is to say it had high pitched voice rather than low pitch one.

This bird took a #6 band, which is too big for a large Cooper's Hawk, but very small for a female Gos -- about right for a tiercel in fact.... or a hybrid.

To be clear, no one is sure what this bird is.

One school says it's an oversized female Cooper's Hawk, another that it's a smaller haggard (older adult) Goshawk that might have flown in from out west where grey color morphs are more common.

Others are sure it's a hybrid -- a "Goopers" Hawk.

A special thanks to Isaac Nichols for the pics and the analysis from the falconry list-servs.

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Harris Hawk X Golden Eagle

Harris Hawk X Golden Eagle in midflight.  Click to enlarge.

As I noted a while back in a post about species loss, a good case can be made that more species are provably being created every year than being driven to extinction. To be clear, I am not saying that species extinction is not a very, very serious problem, only that we should at least mention that useful species and subspecies are being created every day, and in every key type:  fur, fin and feather.   In the history of the world, I am pretty sure the creation of the leghorn chicken is more important than the loss of a subspecies of finch found only on one isolated atoll in the Pacific.

Several examples of speciation (it is a process, not an event) can be found in the world of falconry, where advances in aviary management and artificial insemination have resulted in all kinds of hybrids, such as Gyr/Peregrine and Gyr/Saker crosses that are not only fertile, but which combine the useful characteristics of one species (such as the speed of the Peregrine) with the useful characteristics of another (such as the size and strength of the Gyrfalcon).

The first hybrid falcons were produced in 1971 in western Ireland when falconers Ronald Stevens and John Morris put a male Saker into a moulting mew with a female peregrine. The two young falconers were quite astonished when the birds mated and produced viable hybrid chicks.

Soon other hybrids were being produced, revealing both the extreme plasticity and suspect nature of raptor classification.

One factor driving advances in falcon and hawk hybridization is that in Britain it is now illegal to use wild-caught birds of any kind for falconry. As a consequence, British hawkers and falconers are entirely dependent on captive-bred birds and are eager to fly birds that are demonstrably not wild-born, hence an affinity for hybrids.

Perhaps the most unusual hybrid created in recent years is a cross between a Harris Hawk and a Golden Eagle. These birds have only recently been created by S.&S. Falconry in Canada, and it remains to be seen whether the docile and biddable brain of a Harris Hawk can be reliably placed within the larger body of a Golden Eagle. If so, we will surely end up with the ultimate Jack Rabbit-hunting raptor, as the pictures above, and below, suggest.
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Success with a Harris Hawk-Golden Eagle hybrid.


What makes this mating so unusual, of course, is that we have not only crossed the species line, but we have crossed the genera and subfamily line as well. 

An eagle crossing with a hawk?  Impossible!   But of course, apparently, it's not.   A Buteoninae (hawk) of the genus Parabuteo and the species unicinctus will produce viable young when crossed with a Aquilinae (eagle) of the genus Aquila and the species chrysaetos.   The mind riots.

And, of course, that's not the only "out-of-bounds" cross that's possible.    Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii) and Red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) will also cross with Harris’s hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus).

None of this is likely to have too much effect on the wild, by the way, other than to make sure that most wild-caught birds are left alone to breed freely. 

Today, most falconers and hawkers, the world over, are using captive-bred birds, and many of the female hybrid crosses lay infertile eggs.  But not all of them.  And, of course, the male birds are generally very fertile. 

So, yes, some introduction of genetic variability into the great web of life is possible, but that has always been true, and it is always happening (at a very low level) in the wild.  A Grizzly bear can mate with a Polar bear and have fertile young, and yes that occasionally happens in northern Canada and Alaska.   Natural Saker and Gyrfalcon crosses are fairly common, and quite fertile, while certain ducks and fish species hybridize all the time.  Cougar and Jaguar hybrids occasionally occur in the wild, along with Lynx and Bobcat hybrids. 

Most naturally occurring hybrids go nowhere, of course, some because they are infertile, others because they send the wrong mating signals.   In extreme cases, such as crosses between Mule Deer and Whitetail, the result is otherwise maladaptive.  When startled,  mule-whitetail crosses do not know if they are to bounce away like a mule, or run like a whitetail.  The result:  they tend to get so confused they are quickly eaten!

But of course, stable hybrids are found in the wild, no matter how distressing that idea is to armchair theorists.  For example, DNA research has proven what has always been suspected -- that the Eastern Red Wolf in the U.S. is nothing more than a stable hybrid of a Grey Wolf and a Coyote.

Special thanks to Teddy M. for sending the pics and telling me of this unusual raptor cross!  Not sure who the pics are from, but hat's off for the terrific shots and let me know if you don't want them used.

• Related Post:
  ** Darwin Drives a Hybrid Animal
  ** Condors and Species Loss
  ** Birds of Stranger Feather
  ** Inbred Thinking
  

Eye in the Sky

Peale's tiercel wearing camera way up over Jackson Valley (WY) from Jason Jones.

Video captioned as:

This is a short video clip from one of my tiercel Peale's Peregrine that has been at tame hack for the last 4 weeks. He is wearing a small camera on his back that faces forward. Today, this Peale's tiercel took off playing with another falcon, a male Lanner Falcon, and chased him across the valley and up into the sky thousands of feet. You can see this Peale's keep looking up; he is looking at the Lanner he is chasing. The Lanner Falcon was also wearing a camera. From the Lanner's view, I can see glimpses of this Peale's below him.

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Fly With A Peregrine Falcon And A Goshawk

The Goshawk footage is particularly good because, of course, all birds share this perspective as they zip through the trees.

Remember, as fast and nimble as a Goshawk is, there are birds that are a bit faster and a bit more nimble, otherwise none would ever escape!

Of course, few birds are as persistent as a Goshawk. Not for nothing did Attila the Hun wear an image of a Northern Goshawk on his helmet!

Along with the Northern Goshawk found in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, there is the Grey-bellied Goshawk, the Crested Goshawk, the Sulawesi Goshawk, the Red-chested Goshawk, the African Goshawk, the Chinese Goshawk, the Spot-tailed Goshawk, the Grey Goshawk, the Brown Goshawk, the Christmas Island Goshawk, the Black-mantled Goshawk, the Pied Goshawk, the Fiji Goshawk, the White-bellied Goshawk, the Moluccan Goshawk, the Grey-headed Goshawk, the New Britain Goshawk, the Black Goshawk, Henst's Goshawk, Meyer's Goshawk, Frances' Goshawk, the Gabar Goshawk, the Dark Chanting Goshawk, the Eastern Chanting Goshawk, the Pale Chanting Goshawk, the Red Goshawk, the Chestnut-shouldered Goshawk, and Doria's Goshawk.

Though the Northern Goshawk was mostly driven out of Maryland by logging around 100 years ago, there are a few pairs nesting in Garrett County in Western Maryland. I may be wrong, but I think I saw Steve Huy, a reader of this blog, on a TV show climbing a tree (a prusik knot and Jumar ascender rig) to weigh one year's batch of semi-fledged chicks.

More Goshawks are occasionally seen in Virginia and West Virginia, which serve as the southern terminus of their expected range.
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The Battle Between Fur and Feather

"Maladaptive".

It's one of my favorite words, as it explains why most predators are so cautious in the wild, and why so many prey species appear to be so lucky.

To be too bold or too aggressive is to be maladaptive. "Too bold is soon cold."

A predator cannot afford damage to muscle, joint, bone, tooth, wing, or talon.

And yet a predator cannot afford to be slow, and cannot always be cautious. At some point is has to eat.

And so the great game begins.

Every flight or run holds within it the possibility of great tragedy -- a torn cruciate ligament, a ripped claw, a shattered beak, a lost eye.

Is it any wonder that lions, tigers, and bears are generally so cautious around men? Most of the time, we represent the unknown, and the unknown always represents the chance of great harm.

It does not take much to undo a top predator. And yes, they somehow know that.

• Related Links:
  ** Maladaptive Is a Two-Way Street
  ** Maladaptive Pigeons at the Hand of Man
  ** An Unintended Lesson About Charles Darwin
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One Tough Old Bird

In the picture above, taken last Thursday, Florida Bald Eagle No. 512 is released back into the wild after being rescued and rehabilitated for the second time in 19 years.

This bird was first brought into rescue in 1996, after being shot in the leg and through the wing. Released back to the wild in 1998, she thrived until getting mugged by another eagle while attempting to defend her nesting site. It seems a younger female eagle kicked her off her roost in late November, pinned her to the ground, plucked her chest feathers, and then skewered her with her talons.

Rescued after the battle, Bald Eagle No 512 spent the next three months recovering from her injuries at the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey. Now healthy, #512 was re-released at the same exact same location she first flew to freedom in 1998.

How long do Bald Eagles live? In zoos, they have lived as long as 48 years. On average, however, 15-20 years seems to be about average, so Bald Eagle No. 512 is doing pretty well thanks to a little help from her friends.

• Related Links:
  ** Bald Is Beautiful
  ** Return of the Bald Eagle
  ** Delisting the Bald Eagle a Sign of ESA Success
  ** Dead Frozen Eagles in a National Repository
  ** Let Us Give Thanks for Wild Turkey and Uncle Sam
  ** You Gotta Break Some Eggs to Build a Movement
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Birds Eye View from Hawks, Falcons & Eagles

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