Hawking Pictures and Stories
This is "Chippy", a tiercel prairie-peregrine that my wife, Georgia, raised. We gave him to a friend of ours and a few years later got him back. He was a very gutsy little bird and took 3 jackrabbits for our friend. When I flew him, he would often cut through a whole flock of ducks to knock down the lead drake mallard (which outweighed him about 3:1). He's got a scaup here and has already detached the head (I put the duck back "together" for the photo <g>). Chip was pretty much a one-stoop bird, but he'd go up out of sight for that first stoop and put in some of the most spectacular closed-wing dives I've seen. I gave him away after flying him a couple of years and he died later from avian herpes. He was a fun and pleasant little bird who could really hit the afterburners when he got motivated.
"Woody" was my first redtailed hawk. I named him that because the only thing I could catch for the first several months were wood-rats (Neotoma spp.) that I dug from their dens! Once I learned what to do, he turned into a really good bunny hawk and I had a lot of fun with him. I few Woody for 2 seasons and then turned him loose in the foothills where I'd trapped him.
"Turk" was a passage (wild-trapped) Harris' hawk that I flew for 3 seasons. She was probably the best hawk I've had and caught a lot of different quarry. In this photo, I'm releasing her back to the wild. Before release I banded her with a USFWS band and 3 years later the biologist in the area re-trapped her and confirmed that she was successfully breeding in the wild and in fact was the Alpha female of her "pack". (wild Harris' hunt in social packs much like wolves). Turk was a very small female and flew about about 950 gms.