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More Backyard Zoo
by Daniel Mannix
Chapter One
Robber Barons of the Sky
For many years American farmers have waged a ceaseless war against the fierce hunting hawks that raid their chicken yards. The picturesque but savage birds have been regarded as destructive vermin and treated as such. But recently an increasing interest in these winged marauders has led to a revival of the almost forgotten sport of falconry.
I had my first introduction to falconry while at college. A fellow student who kept hawks invited me to see his stud.
The hawks were sitting on blocks in the center of the lawn behind his fraternity. Keating, the falconry enthusiast, knelt beside the nearest, a magnificent bird nearly two feet high. Her brilliant feathers glistened in the sun. Around her legs were two short strips of leather, the jesses. Their ends were fastened to a swivel which in turn was secured to a leash tied to a movable iron ring about the base of the block.
Standing a couple of feet away, Keating held out his gloved hand and the hawk leaped upon his fist. From his pocket Keating took a leather hood, ornamented with a little tuft of feathers on the top. He slipped it over the hawk's head and at once she grew quiet and stopped her nervous jumping and flapping.
Keating explained that the jesses are put on as soon as the hawk is caught. During a hunt, the hawk is held to the wrist by a leash secured to holes in the ends of the jesses. When the dogs point, the hawk is unhooded and the leash slipped; then she shoots out to 'wait on' over the field until the game is flushed.
"How can I get some of these?" I asked. Keating hesitated. "These are haggards — hawks caught when they were full grown. You had best start with an eyess — a hawk taken from the nest. An eyess is much tamer and easier to handle. I'll take you to a duck-hawk's nest and you can get some little fellows. Our duckhawk corresponds to the Peregrine falcon of the Middle Ages and is the best falcon. She's a 'noble' bird."
"They all look noble to me," I said, looking at the long line of falcons.
" 'Noble' means a long-winged hawk. 'Ignoble' is applied to the shortwinged hawks that kill directly, without a 'pitch' — but you'll pick up all these terms. We will get the eyess peregrines this weekend."
The next Saturday we motored out to the Allegheny and stopped by the wooded slopes of a young mountain. For an hour Keating led me up through timber until we came to the edge of a cliff. There was a sheer drop of 500 feet to where a deep blue river slowly crawled along.
Keating fastened one end of a rope he had brought to the trunk of an aged pine that leaned half over the brink of the precipice. As the brown coils slipped out, there was an explosion down the side of the cliff, and a great hawk flashed out, screaming in short, broken calls. Like a giant swallow she turned and twisted below us, her thin, powerful wings giving proof that for a mile or so she is the fastest flying bird in the world. It was the Peregrine falcon, the bird that once no one under the rank of earl was allowed to keep.
Keating made sure the rope was fast, and then motioned for me to climb down. It was not until I swung off the shaking cord that I realized just what a lot of empty space lay under me. The abyss seemed to be dragging at my feet, and the screaming hawk's savage dives at my head did not add to my comfort. The aerie had been about fifteen feet below us, but it seemed to me that I descended a hundred before I reached the shelf on which it was located.
The aerie was a pile of sticks that formed a weak wall between the babies and the edge of the shelf. The little hawks were still fat, white balls of downy feathers that squeaked defiance at me. I dropped the three of them into a bag I had brought and Keating hoisted them up to the top of the cliff.
As I waited for the rope to return, the mother bird reappeared, together with the male, which was about one third smaller than his mate. I understood why falconers speak of the male as the 'tiercel', meaning 'a third'.
Keating had told me that duckhawks will not attack a man, but as the angry birds rushed by my head I strongly suspected that their purpose was not benevolent. The rope came flapping down the side of the cliff again and, grabbing it, I started up. When I finally dragged myself over the edge and fell exhausted, I wondered if I would go through such an experience again for a million dollars. I decided I wouldn't.
The little eyesses looked like three powder puffs with huge, hooked beaks sticking out of the center. Occasionally there was the gleam of a baleful eye.
On the way home, Keating told me the encouraging news that these young hawks might die. We had taken them far too young.
After all I had gone through, I determined that the little falcons should not die. I made a bed of hay for them in the loft of the barn, and tried to arrange with a local farmer for plenty of freshly killed chickens. The farmer regarded any one who planned to nurture 'chicken hawks' as a lunatic. So I got pigeons instead.
It then appeared the young would have to be fed every four hours every day. I was on the point of regretfully leaving college, when the son of the farmer was thoughtful enough to sprain his ankle. I hired him to sit in the loft and feed pigeons to the young hawks.
As soon as they were old enough to take trial flights about the loft — pardon me — mews — I let them out to fly 'at hack'. Hawks at hack are simply allowed to go free, and being used to eating in the mews, they return morning and evening to be fed.
Then I began to see my hawks only twice a day, at morning and evening feedings. I fed at six a.m. and six p.m. to the dot. Ten minutes before meals, there was not a hawk in the sky. Then the two tiercels would come racing up and land on the hackboard (feeding board) with the feathers on their throats quivering as they sat and panted. Then, just before six, a speck would appear in the sky. The female was returning post haste. Almost to the second, she would shoot down and scream loudly for food.
At last, one day the female was not there for the evening feeding. The next day she came for both meals, but soon began to miss her supper regularly.
This could mean only one thing; she was killing for herself. The time had come to 'take her up' — recapture her and 'man' her. I lured her inside the mews and tried to attach a swivel and leash to her jesses.
The ensuing engagement was one that would have reminded Sinbad the Sailor of the good old days with the Roc. The falcon did not use her beak, which was something to be thankful for, but what she did with her powerful claws would have interested a wildcat. At last I managed to wrap an old shirt about her body to keep her 'sails' down, and then slipped on a hood. Almost instantly she grew calm, and allowed me to carry her out to a block in the yard.
The next day I began her education. For nearly a week I carried her constantly on my fist. At first Von Richthofen (as I had named her, regardless of sex) 'bated off' — flew the length of her leash desperately, whenever I picked her up; but after a few days she grew more quiet and learned to eat through the hood quite comfortably.
Then I tried unhooding her late one afternoon. It was nearly a fatal mistake; she seemed to go raging mad after seeing the light again. A falcon, I learned, must never be unhooded in daylight for the first time. During a meal, in darkness except for a dim candle, the hood is slipped off for a moment. I rubbed salve on Von's legs, which had been injured during the fracas, and waited.
By dint of sitting up with her for three nights, I trained Von to allow herself to be hooded and unhooded. This cost me $15 in hospital bills!
Now both of us had a rest, while Von rode about bareheaded on my wrist. Meanwhile, after carefully studying an old print, I manufactured a 'lure' for training my falcon to fly at game. This was simply four chicken wings lashed about a horseshoe roughly to resemble a bird. Then I tied on a long rope to allow me to swing the lure over my head.
Von was fed from the lure for several days. Then it was thrown a dozen feet away, a long line substituted for the leash and she was allowed to fly at it. After that, the boy who had fed Von as a nestling was called in. Von, hooded, sat on his wrist. I swung the lure about my head; the falcon was unhooded and cast off.
She hovered about for a moment, uncertain what to do. Then she saw the whirling lure and rushed for it.
A few days of this and live pigeons were substituted for the lure. Then all was ready for the first hunt. The two tiercels had been reclaimed and were flying nicely at the lure, but it would be some time before they could be flown at quarry. However, I was anxious to give Von a real test.
I telephoned Keating, who agreed to take me to the next hunt of the falconry club. A few other students, like ourselves, had become interested in the sport and now were veterans.
A half dozen of us drove out with hooded hawks to the foothills, where miles of rolling country allow long-winged hawks to be flown. These 'noble' falcons cannot hunt in timber, but some of the falconers had the deadly short-winged goshawk, which thinks nothing of following a rabbit into the heart of a bramble patch. Also with us went two pointers, trained for work with hawks.
At last we came to the top of a little hill. It was almost a perfect day for falconry. The great field of soft waving green swept away beneath us, wrinkled from time to time by a light breeze. In the distance the blue mountains stretched away in a long line.
"The wind is freshening," Laughton, another falconer, said to me. "You had better fly your new eyess as soon as possible. Start the dogs out, Howell."
The two pointers, their noses held high in the breeze, ran down into the field. Dogs used with falcons must be trained not only to point, but also to flush the game when the hawks are ready. These pointers were old experts.
Suddenly one of the dogs made a point. Instantly I unhooded Von and slipped her jesses clear of the wrist-leash. She shook herself, looked about with her fierce brown eyes and shifted her feet, eager to be off.
Keating waved his hand. Howell shouted to the dogs. They rushed forward, leaping high over the wheat and barking loudly. A flock of wild pigeons rose and, wheeling in a great arc, flew away.
Von did not need the falconer's cry, "Gaze ho!" With a powerful bound she flashed away.
The noble hawks kill by a terrific blow of their mailed fist, delivered from above. The falcon must 'rise to her pitch' — get above the quarry — and then 'stoop' — a rapid downwards rush ending in the death stroke. At lightning speed Von raced up behind the pigeons. She rose for her pitch, then stooped like a bullet. One of the pigeons came hurtling down. Using the impetus of her stoop to carry her up again, the falcon struck a second time. Before she could take the air again, the rest of the flock had vanished.
I whistled, and in a beautiful curve Von came racing back to me. I held out my hand and she swept up and seized it. Excited and panting, she allowed herself to be hooded as the dogs brought up the dead pigeons.
The breeze had grown stronger, but Keating determined to fly his wildcaught peregrine.
"Now you'll see falconry at its best," whispered Howell. "That eyess of yours made a nice show, of course," he added politely; "but nothing can compare with a haggard that has killed all her life and has been worked a season or two with good dogs."
I was soon to see both the power and weakness of the haggard. Keating unhooded her and at once the powerful bird sprang into the air. Higher and higher over the field she rose, until she was no bigger than a butterfly in the clear sky. There she hung, 'waiting on', while the dogs moved through the brush.
I began to understand Howell's oft-repeated boast that no hunting dog can equal a falcon-dog. As these pointers changed from field to field, they would hesitate each time, looking up to make sure the falcon was following. The haggard also understood perfectly, and she followed every move they made.
Suddenly, by the edge of an old ditch, the dogs came to point. The hawk, which had been waiting at a tremendous height to command the whole field, closed her wings and fell for a hundred feet or so. Then, opening her 'sails', she floated motionless.
Without needing a signal from Howell, the dogs sprang the game as soon as they saw the falcon had decided on her pitch. Three pheasants whirred up and flashed across the field.
At more than a hundred miles an hour, the peregrine was after them. The pheasants turned in midair and scattered, but she had picked her prey. An old cock, flying low, tried to dodge toward a patch of woods. The falcon was there before him. Then the terrible thunderbolt stoop, a blow we could hear distinctly, and the pheasant dropped in a mist of feathers, his back and ribs broken.
Keating whistled shrilly, but the falcon ignored him. 'Making her point' by swooping up over the bushes where the rest of the covey had vanished, she waited on for the dogs to drive them out. The dogs, nothing loath, rushed in again.
Keating whistled anxiously. He knew that both dogs and falcon were perfectly willing to go off hunting together on their own responsibility.
An old crow broke from a patch of sumac bushes and made a desperate rush for the woods. The peregrine swept down toward him. This black corn thief was beneath her notice, but half contemptuously, she stooped. The falcon missed! By a terrific bank, the wise old crow had avoided her blow.
At once the angry haggard shot up again, striving for the pitch, this time in deadly earnest. But the crow was a veteran of many seasons and knew the ways of hawks. When the haggard had completed the great curve that should have brought her over the crow, he was still a dozen feet above his grim pursuer, flying desperately upwards.
As the falcon must be above her quarry for a kill, the swift bird again tried to reach her pitch. Again she found the crow still above her.
Due to his shorter wings, the smaller bird was able to fly almost perpendicularly upwards, while the falcon had to rise in a series of great circles. Each one trying to get over the other, the two birds 'ringed' up until they were pin pricks in the blue sky.
At last, the haggard turned, and leaving the crow, began to fly in a great circle that would unquestionably bring her to her pitch. The crow realized the powerful, streamlined hawk would beat above him. With a swift bank, he rushed off toward a patch of woods far below. The hawk ignored him, and steadfastly continued her circle.
Then we saw the falcon come around. So did the crow. He had managed to get above the woods, and, closing his wings, he fell like a stone.
The hawk stooped. At almost 200 miles an hour she flashed down, easily overtaking the crow. A blow. A little puff of black feathers. But the crow, making an incredible barrel-roll by suddenly sticking out one wing, escaped. Then he was off again, and in a moment the falcon was after him. Keating tore off his coat, and holding his flapping falconer's bag close to his body, ran at full speed after the fast disappearing dots.
It was almost dark before Keating returned. The soaked shirt clinging to his back and the trembling white throat feathers of the recaptured haggard showed the run they had had. But they were wild with excitement. They had taken part in the greatest thrill falconry can offer — heron hawking.
The crow had escaped into the brush on a hillside. The haggard had made her point and was waiting on over the trees when the falconers came up. Suddenly down the evening sky came flapping a huge bird, gleaming purple in the sunset light. It was the monarch of the swamp, the Great Blue Heron.
In a flash the falcon was after him. The heron tried to rise, but the peregrine reached her pitch. The quarry dove toward earth, but not in time to avoid the deadly stoop. Then either the falcon 'bound' to the heron, gripping him as though she were an ignoble hawk, or her talons became entangled with the great wings. Both birds came to earth together.
When the falconers reached the spot, a desperate combat was taking place. The heron was stabbing at the hawk with his long pointed bill, while she maintained her position on his back. Keating interfered instantly. The haggard was pulled off and the heron allowed to escape.
If hawking could be substituted for gunning it would be a great boon to wild life. Naturally, far fewer birds are killed, even with the savage goshawks, than with a shotgun. It is the natural way for game birds to be killed. Wild life shot over is in a state of alarm for weeks after. Falcons may be flown every day without causing disturbance, for the game see wild hawks continually and are used to them as natural enemies.
The perfect play between the dogs and the hawks, the magnificent action of the winged hunters, the brilliant maneuvering of the quarry — all combine to make hawking the perfect as well as the oldest field sport.
