Flying with falcons

Ten-year-old Walter Funke and his father, Don, set up their cage trap in the snow in a field near Ithaca, N.Y. Then they sat in their car to wait for a hawk to get curious enough about the meat it held to fly into the trap (the trap doesn't hurt the hawk). A lot of red-tailed hawks hang out in the area, and the increasingly bad weather meant the hawks were likely to be hungry. That would make them more curious. Finally, Walter and Don's patience paid off.

Don had recently passed the test to become an apprentice falconer, and this newly trapped male red-tailed hawk (named Fletch) is his first bird. Don will probably fly Fletch for a couple of seasons and then release him back into the wild. Don's sponsor has been a master falconer for 30 years. He will guide Don along the way and monitor his progress with the bird.

Falconry is thousands of years old, but it's fairly new to America. It's rare to read an account of anyone flying a bird of prey here before the 1930s. Falconry clubs began to form in the 1950s, and the sport became highly regulated by the federal government in the 1970s. Today there are about 4,000 master falconers in the United States and several thousand more general and apprentice falconers.

So-called "Renaissance fairs" and bird-of-prey shows whet the public appetite for falconry. They also provide opportunities for falconers to earn a living doing what they love to do. When one sees a peregrine falcon soaring through the air, one can easily conjure up scenes we've read about in books: Medieval lords and ladies riding, holding hooded falcons on gloved fists. Or an Arab sheik, clad in flowing robes, surveying the desert sands with his hunting falcon perched on his wrist.

Falconry is considered a sport and - according to most falconers - a way of life. Ultimately, falconry is a finely tuned relationship between a human and a wild bird of prey (also called a raptor). Falconers may "fly" eagles, owls, hawks, or falcons. The bird comes to rely on the falconer as a source of food. You can watch a peregrine falcon "waiting on" (flying in high, tight circles over) a falconer. The falcon is waiting for the falconer to flush out game.

The falconer, on his or her part, becomes an expert on the natural history of the places chosen to fly the bird, the bird's quirks, and training techniques. Training requires a gentle hand and a high level of trust.

"Prepare for a major commitment," says Jason Smyth when asked what advice he'd offer a would-be falconer. Mr. Smyth is an 18-year-old falconer from St. Louis. "Falconry is not for everyone, and it is not for anyone who is not willing to take a major portion of his time and donate it to the cause."

After Jason passed his state falconry exam last year, he trapped a red-tailed hawk. He's now flying Aquila for his second season. But as Jason found out, the time commitment is enormous. He spent many hours a day providing for Aquila's basic needs in those first few weeks after he trapped him. He had to work hard to persuade the bird that he did not intend to hurt him.

Many people discover falconry first in books. In "My Side of the Mountain" (1959) by Jean Craighead George, young Sam Gribley runs away to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with his peregrine falcon, Frightful, and a weasel for companions. Ms. George's book greatly influenced Jason, who decided to become a falconer after reading it. (Ms. George's brothers, in fact, were some of the first falconers in the United States.)

Page: 1 | 2 | 3