By Joe Atkinson
Sometimes in life stuff just happens — without any planning or thought, it just shows up and away you go. With that said, however, you don’t just go out and play golf for the first time and shoot a low score or jump on and ride a jumping horse and win a Grand Prix. Everything’s a journey, a journey that can take years of trial and error to eventually get you to where you want to be. Falconry is no different. Falconry is so much more than a sport, it is a way of life. The raptors we bring into our lives demand and deserve our full attention. If you are not prepared to hand over your life to falconry then look elsewhere for your life’s endeavor because this is not the place for you.
Falconry has many paths to choose from, determined by which raptor you like, short wings or longs wings and everything in between. They all will take you on the ride of your life. With that said, there are other factors that come into play that you must consider…. where you live, what types of prey are in your area, is that prey compatible with your chosen bird and will you have access to fields to fly your bird in. Living in a forest and wanting to fly a falcon might not be the best choice. In that case, you should think about a goshawk, for example. If you are living in the city, flying a golden eagle may not be the wisest choice either.
Cordi and I live in the high desert of Eastern Oregon, twenty miles from the Idaho border. This is wide-open sagebrush country. Here the sagebrush seems endless, stretching out for hundreds of miles in all directions. This wide-open landscape is eagle country. Golden eagles, with their power and speed, are unmatched and reign supreme as the king of birds in this unforgiving environment.
I caught my first jackrabbit with my first golden eagle in 1976. Yes, a long time ago. I can still recall that flight vividly in my mine, like it was yesterday. Cordi and I were still in college, living on a sizeable cattle and horse ranch. I remember calling out to Cordi, so excited to come see what we caught. Up until that moment I had been just flying my eagle in preparation for a movie. But watching an eagle slope-soar off the side of a hill for days on end leads to boredom, I guess, and I started to look for game to hunt. I soon discovered where the jackrabbits were hiding and one thing led to another until I found myself moving, ever so slowly, down the side of the hill, entering the ‘flush zone’! Like all jackrabbit flushes, they pop up from nothing and are suddenly just up and running. My eagle had given chase to many a ground squirrel and had caught a few, so the sight of something running was, in her mind, food. After all these years and countless flights with both eagles and falcons, the thing I still remember of my first eagle flight was her explosive power coming off the fist as she launched towards that jack. That feeling, that rush, if you will, chose my path in falconry for me. I was hooked on eagles.
Falconry is a journey and that journey can take you down roads you never dreamed of and show you things you never thought possible. Falconers, I feel, have an opportunity to look through a window into the natural world that very few other people ever have a chance to look through. Because of the relationship that we have with our birds they show us just how amazing they really are and how difficult survival is for them. Watching the predator/prey relationship, falconers see all the very subtle details that, for instance, a duck that is being pursued by a peregrine goes through trying to shake off its attacker. Or what a tree squirrel does to elude a red tailed hawk in hot pursuit. Falconers see these stories unfold in front of them each time they fly their raptors, something biologists in the field only hope to catch a fleeting glimpse of, perhaps once in a lifetime.
I said that falconry is more than a sport, that it’s a life style. But, even more than that, it’s a partnership between you and your bird. This partnership is never more evident than in the relationship that forms between a falconer and a golden eagle. Maybe it’s the shear size of the eagle that causes the eagle to feel less afraid of the falconer. Or maybe it’s the eagle’s attitude, somehow born with the knowledge that they are ‘bad’ enough to send the falconer to the hospital. Or it could be as simple as that golden eagles love to hunt and you are a means for them to get to do that. I don’t know, but what I do know is that golden eagles like to catch things, almost dog-like. They are like no other falconry bird. And for that reason they are often not given the opportunities they deserve – to be flown and hunted. Sadly, many golden eagles are trapped and then paraded around meet hotel lobbies and such, never flown or hunted. I call these people ‘pet keepers’. To do the bird justice, do not get a golden eagle unless you intend to fly it, they deserve better.
I have always tried to push the envelope in falconry, seeing what is possible and how to go to the next level. I believe a waiting-on golden eagle over my two dogs is pushing the bar to the highest level. Watching our two Tazis race across the high desert, hot on the tail of a jackrabbit, and then seeing my female eagle, Widow, come stooping in from 3000-4000feet and scoop up the jack a matter of feet in front of our two dogs is, well, spectacular, to stay the least. The journey to get to the point of watching an eagle and two dogs hunting as a team was, however, unplanned and unexpected. I never sat there and said ‘you know, I want to have an eagle wait-on like a giant falcon over my dogs as they race after jacks’. Like so many things in life, some things seem to just happen for reasons all their own. Flying a waiting-on eagle just took shape by itself. I will allow myself a little credit in that I did see the potential and ran with it.
Someone once said that the only difference between a master falconer and a first-year general is that the master has made way more mistakes. This would certainly be true in my case. However, in my defense, it did not take me long to realize that running around on foot through sagebrush trying to flush a jackrabbit, or anything for that matter, under my eagle circling overhead like a great white shark, was not going to happen. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was going to move. I found myself fantasizing about setting the entire hillside on fire as a last ditch effort to get something to move under my eagle. As the fire option was, well, not a good one, I moved on to plan B, which was an Internet search to find a breed of dog called a Tazi. Tazis are sight hounds that originate in Kazakhstan are bred to do one thing and one thing only, run. Sight hounds are just what their name implies; they use their eyes more than their noses. And boy can they run! Tazis are freakishly athletic, more cat-like than dog, I would say. It’s almost, and I say that loosely like I’ve had one, but it is almost like having a cheetah. Tazis are not interested in being watchdogs or playing fetch or any sort of obedience, at least ours aren’t. They are interested in one thing, chasing rabbits at breakneck speed. Our young male, Khan, has already caught four jacks on his own, no easy task, I assure you.
I have made a couple of interesting observations in this latest journey of mine. I was very surprised at how quickly the eagle realized the advantage of having dogs flush jacks under her. Widow has, on occasion, stooped and upended a coyote or two with, what I could tell, was serious intent. So I was justifiably concerned when introducing the dogs onto the team. I first started with Zeva, our female, and then a year later added Khan. Whenever jackrabbit, eagle and dogs all come together at the same moment I still cringe a little, not wanting to hear a dog yelping. Even after the addition of one freakishly fast dog, I was surprised at the difference the second, even faster dog has made. Dogs play such an important role in my falconry, be it my English pointers hunting sage grouse or my two Tazis chasing jacks. Having two dogs is a good idea if you have the room. Hunting dogs work very hard and because of this they can get hurt, and when that happens and your dog goes on the IR (injured reserves) your falconry comes to a screeching halt Try looking for sage grouse without a dog, see how far that gets you. Or, better yet, run after a jackrabbit. Not only do dogs enhance the falconry experience, they are totally indispensable. Early in the first season Zeva returned after streaking across the plains and had torn open her shoulder, which required stitches, out for a week. No dog, no flights….grounded. The second thing that I found interesting was how the dogs worked together to flank the jacks, which is difficult due, in large part, to all the obstacles they must negotiate. Rocks of all sizes, cactus, sagebrush every three to four feet apart and let’s not forget the million holes dug by badgers looking for ground squirrels. I can honestly say that Widow, Zeva and Khan have formed a definite working partnership – Widow constantly watches the dogs beneath her and the dogs will actually pull up and look into the sky to check Widow’s position. It has been an amazing process to witness.
Flying an eagle in this style is thrilling. Seeing an eagle stoop from thousands of feet is one of nature’s most awesome sights. But it takes living in the right area, having the right prey and the right dogs. All of this must come together to produce what I consider to be eagle falconry at the highest level.
I leave you with notes from the field:
April 13, 2016
Widow 9.5lbs
Zeva
Khan
Temp 68’
Wind 10-15mph NW
This will be Khan’s first year, as last season he was young and we did not bring him out until the very end when he was large enough not to get grabbed by Widow. I have noticed that he is showing signs of being faster than Zeva, something I would not have expected, as Zeva is fast. Khan has been getting closer and closer to the jacks they have been flushing, only adding to my concern of what would happen when Khan and Widow got to the jack at the same time, eagles don’t share well! Out in the field we have been keeping one dog on a leash as to have a fresh dog ready to go, so Cordi leads Khan. This also gives us some control of the hunt, as Khan, with his young, unbridled energy, is all over the hills otherwise. Cordi and Khan were off to my right and Zeva was at my side. All of a sudden a jack jumped up straight in front of me as I walked up a slight grade. I yelled ‘ho’ and freed Zeva, who gave chase. Cordi freed Khan, who joined Zeva, and the two dogs immediately flanked the jack, keeping the speedy rabbit in between them as they accelerated away from us. Within seconds we could hear Widow coming down, the sound is unmistakable. Ripping the air, Widow was bringing speed and attitude that only a female golden eagle can bring. As the chase went up and over the slight rise we could no longer see the jack or the dogs. My eyes switched over to Widow who was in a full mummy tuck, hurdling towards her target. We heard a whack and then saw Widow doing a huge pitch-up, like a massive falcon, looking back over her shoulder at the ground. She had clearly hit something. Rolling over, Widow headed straight down to the ground again. But just as she was nearly down we heard the jack scream, which seemed strange to us. This was all happening in just seconds, so fast my mind could barely keep up. The next scene was Khan tearing down the hillside with a jack in his mouth and Widow right on his ass! The look in Khan’s eye was one of extreme pride and fear all at once. Just as Widow was coming up Khan’s back he must have sensed that something was about to go horribly wrong and he opened his mouth to let go of the jackrabbit, only to have Widow snatch the jack away, land and start plucking fur. Disaster averted! Good Hawking!