WRITING: FLYING HAWKS and RESEARCH WORK

Hi Everyone
Well, as part of my book research, I drove up to Flagstaff to tape record Susan Ruble, owner of High Country Raptors http://highcountryraptors.com
for my forthcoming book I have to write for HQN. This book is due December 1, 2007, and I envision April 1, 2007 as the start date for it; and most of my prelim research should be done. I lugged my tape recorder, four sixty-minute tapes, my legal pad and several pens, and my trusty Nikon D-70 with me. My intuition told me to take my tripod but I 'x'ed that out because I wasn't planning on taking any outside shots of birds flying on this trip. I figured it would take three hours of picking Susan's brain on what she knows--that I need to know--in order to write comfortably and with a drop of knowledge about her world of falconry and raptors for my book (no name yet---wish someone would suggest a title! I'm awful on titles. So, if you can think of one, put it in my COMMENT below with thanks) :-))

On my last trip to see Susan, about a month ago, she'd loaned me about five different books on falconry. I'd been reading through them, acquainting myself with the language, the gear and the world these people live in--and that I had to live in--in order to write a book that came alive and made the readers enthralled with the raptors, the hero, heroine and the plot.

Tuesday, March 13, was a beautiful day. Arizona is in a very hot spell for March--a record breaker. And I thought Flag would be cold but it wasn't. When I drove into Susan's driveway her screen door was open to allow the nice, warm Spring air flow through.

She was feeding "Squeaky" her Screech Owl (the one she calls 'little monster' because he's SUCH an escape artist). I watched her carefully put a bowl of water into Squeaky's cage. And when I looked at him, he'd clack his beak at me, blink his big yellow eyes and look so cute. How could anyone call him 'little monster,' I wondered. As if reading my mind, Susan said, "You know, he's an escape artist." And she very carefullyk, with the door very slightly opened, moved things around in Squeaky's cage with her long, artistic looking fingers. Squeaky was watching the door. No subtly there. Nope. And then Susan proceeded to tell me a story about another Screech Owl that a woman was keeping in her basement (a very nice heated basement). And the Screech zoomed out of the cage and took off like a bat out of hell. Well, she looked and looked and looked for that pint size squirt (Screech Owls are less than a can of soda in an aluminum can to give you an idea of size). Finally, she had to go upstairs and ask her husband and he said, "Oh, he flew past me about ten minutes ago and went into our bedroom." Completely exasperated, the woman went into the bedroom and there was the Screech Owl up on top of one of the posters looking at her. She finally caught him, but tales of Screech Owls escaping, I guess, are pretty common. They're cute little trickersters, though. And I'm sure I'll have one in my book. I didn't get any photos of Squeaky, but I will, eventually. He's such a pint sized squirt!

So, on with what unfolded during our second research session at Susan's home:


On the last visit, we had Nara the African Auger Buzzard. This time, when I peeked around the corner into the room off the living room, here was Isis. She is a Gyrfalcon hybrid. And what a beauty. I was so drawn to her black, shiny eyes. She seemed rather aloof to us, and Susan was explaining when Jeff (a male) came over, Isis fell all over herself cooing and whistling to him. In essence, Jeff was like a mate and Isis was wooing him with her repertoir of sounds. With us two females, she just stared back at us. Susan explained that sometimes that would happen. A male hawk would connect better with a female human and vice-versa. Genderism lives on, it seems, in the raptor world as well....


This probably doesn't look too terribly exciting, but for me it was wonderful. I wondered how Susan transferred or travled her raptors around from place to place. Well, here's how. This is a plastic corogated box--a travel box--and you can see the 'perch' in there where the raptor is placed. There are holes at the top and slits at the bottom to allow plenty of circulation of air so the bird doesn't die. This is a very lightweight travel case. It has velcro on the door and once the raptor is sitting, facing the door, it is gently closed. Velcro doesn't come loose. Susan made several points about the raptors and the box. She said first of all, you never forced one into or out of one. Why? If you did, the bird would have a 'bad experience' and balk and fight from then on. It's so important, Susan said, to give the bird a 'good experience' every time with the travel box. She also gives them a 'treat' (think a "pinkie" here) once they are inside the box.


This is SKY, a juvenile Red Tail male that was Susan's first bird. She "trapped" it. In the state of Arizona, you spend a year learning falconry from someone who already is licensed. When you complete the year of training under a master falconer, you can then 'trap' a raptor. Trapping is a story in and of itself. Basically, Fish and Game allow you to trap a juvenile bird (usually a hawk or kestrel) and keep it for a year and then return it to the wild within a couple of years. The reason they do this is -- and keep this in mind --that 75-80% of all raptors that are juveniles (less than a year old) die because they don't get the hang of hunting, or that hunting is poor in an area. So, by capturing or 'trapping' a young hawk, one can feed it, help it to learn how to hunt (with a lure) and finally, by the end of third year, return it to the wild with a much better chance of being able to survive than it did before.


Here's a 'trap'and this is a small one to trap a Kestrel, the smallest of the hawks. You can see all the filmy monofilament on top of the cage. Each of these is a carefully made loop. What is put into the cage in this case, would be a live Gerbile. Once you find a Kestrel, you would set out the trap, the Gerbile, hopefully is running around and making movement because hawks will dive on movement. As the hawk lands on the top of the cage to 'foot' (uses his/her feet and claws to try and grab the rodent) the Gerbile, it will (the falconer hopes) accidentally put a foot through one of these looped monofilaments. Once the do and they try to pull loose, well the hawk is caught. Of course, there's a lot of timing to this on the falconer's part, too. You may think the hawk is caught, but as you get out of hiding to retrieve it, off it flies. And usually, it won't come back to a trap once this happens. Although, there are times this doesn't hold true.

Susan spent two weeks trying to 'trap' her first hawk. She was looking for a juvenile Red Tail hawk. Her exploits are worthy of putting in my HQN, which is where I'm sure her trials and tribultations will show up. After two weeks, she finally got her hawk!


Here is Susan's first hawk, in 1998, Sky, the juvenile Red Tail hawk male. Doesn't she look ecstatic? Look at that ear to ear smile. Like she was floating on air. But who wouldn't? She caught this bird and it was very thin....not starving, but Sky was obviously having trouble finding enough food--either because he wasn't a skilled hunter yet or there wasn't much in the way of mice and rabbits where he had his territory.


You can see Susan is ecstatic and Sky is in shock. Look at his eyes. Wide open and stunned looking. Susan said that the first 24 hours after trapping a hawk you had to 'man' it. She said you could have a 'manning' party. Manning a bird means to acquaint it, while it is still in this stunned state, and get it used to all the noises, people, and strange things a hawk would never know about. For some reason, that magical 24 hours the hawk is more apt to 'adapt' to living with and near a human and their home/children/pets, than at any other time. In that 24 hours, the kids hold the bird, the pets come and go, Susan runs the vacuum cleaner, turns on the radio, the television, and has movement back and forth around the bird, strokes the bird's tail, back, breast and head. She said there's different ways to train a bird and I found this fascinating. One way was after capture to hood the bird with a leather hood. And then, when things were quiet and there was no noise, the hood would be taken off by the falconer and the bird allowed to adjust. And then, the hood would go back on. Susan's way was the opposite: use the stunned period and get the bird adjusted to being with humans and all that it means. She said there was no right way or wrong way--just different ways--to introduce a raptor to a human living situation. Her birds, she notes, aren't jumpy and startle or start to fly or 'bait' when on a fist (gauntlet/leather glove on your hand) when there's noises or people or animals around them. Still, look at poor Sky's face--that bird is definitely in SHOCK! Huge, round eyes.


Back to Isis. I had an interesting experience with her. Susan and I did about an hour of research taping and when the tape ended, we got up to stretch. I sauntered into the room and there was Isis on her perch. She started to chirp at me. She'd look at me and then look to the left. She did this twice. I finally 'got it' and looked to where she was looking. There was a perch and a soft moose toy. I looked back at her. She stared holes in me. And then, she'd look to the left and then back at me. When Susan came up, I told her what had happened. She laughed and said, "Oh, Isis wants to play with her toy," and she went over and got the moose toy. As soon as Susan picked it up, Isis started whistling, chirping and flapping her wings a little and dancing around on the perch. Susan said Isis was young and a lot of young raptors like to 'play' with things--keeps the boredom level from occurring. She tossed Isis the toy and instantly, she leaped upon it. She 'footed' it with her claws, which is what hawks do when they grab something and then kill and eat it.

And then, Isis 'dragged' off her captured toy. They do this out in the wild, Susan explained. Once the quarry is caught, they will often drag it under a bush or tree so they don't feel so vulnerable out in the open. And this is what Isis was doing--following her instincts to take her moose toy and drag it away from us.


And then, once Isis felt she had the toy where she wanted, she would rip and tear at it with he beak. She'd foot it (you can see the claws on the toy) and then with her beak, shred it. Or try. Susan explained that out in the wild, when a hawk caught something, they'd do the very same thing. Only, the poor animal (rabbit, packrat, mouse, quail or other small bird) would probably die very slowly. It's a violent world in Nature and nowhere do you come face to face with it quite so baldly as here, with raptors. You are privileged to get inside their world, watch them instinctually survive and begin to understand that survival. And you feel sorry for the caught prey, but life and death are playing out all the time--on all leveles within the animal world--and most of the time, humans are not aware of this. Especially city people where Nature has been pushed away. Out in the country, you do see it. If you live on a farm, you see it all the time--from calves that die, or cows that die during birthing, to dogs or cats who go through the same cycle. People who work with raptors get to see it too--only through the eyes and the world of the raptors who they love and work to save and return to the wild.


And I'll leave you tonight with this photo of Bo, the male Harris Hawk, an educational hawk, that Susan flies. After three hours of work, Susan decided we could 'play.' I got to accompany her over to the Flagstaff Arboretun (botanical garden) where she puts on her raptor program shows from April through October, and watch her fly Bo and a crazy chicken bird (as I refer to him), Spike, the Cara-Cara, a south american bird whose such a comic. Anyway, lots of photos to follow in the coming days as I get time, and more stories! As a writer, just going with Susan and watching, listening, learning and observing all get tucked away in my brain and later (hopefully) will come out as a good story for my titleless HQN :-).

I had a hell of a time with my Nikon and my settings. I started out with a short lens and then quickly went to my Nikor 70-300mm lens--hand held--no tripod--I shoulda listened to my intuition....and trying to snap photos of Bo as he zoomed around like a rocket....wow....I had about 250 photos shot but the only ones I'll share are these. I gotta learn some more about my D-70 so I can get the stop action....but you can see Bo in action here, despite that, and his INTENT and his focus. Wow! Whatta bird!

In Spirit.....Eileen