"Mabel was the name given
to my second passage red-tailed hawk. She was trapped in northern
California on the very first day of the legal trapping season.
She weighed around 1300 grams, which is not a record, but certainly
above average for a western red-tailed hawk. She had big feet,
with a hallux claw measuring over 32 millimeters, which is excellent
if you want a hawk to take jackrabbits, as I did.
Mabel chased the second jackrabbit
she saw after completing training.She caught the second jackrabbit
she ever chased. She loved to fly low and chase the jacks from
the rear. She missed more jacks than she ever caught, but mainly
because jackrabbits have a big bag of tricks and jacks tend to
evade pursuing red-tails rather than outrunning them. I saw Mabel
juked out of position by several jacks, and a couple of times,
she pounced and landed within two feet of a jackrabbit, which
then hopped away, knowing Mabel would not be able to recover.
She had a great temperament and tolerated people very well, and
even tolerated my cat! One day, while hawking, Mabel took a perch
on a wooden telephone pole. I turned my back and went into a ditch
to flush out rabbits. When I turned around, Mabel was gone and
I never saw her again, despite a huge amount of effort over several
weeks. I suspect Mabel caught a rabbit on the ground and then
just didn't see the need to respond to my whistling, calling,
luring, etc. Then we had a series of heavy storms, which probably
moved her on. I believe Mabel is out there making a good living
and in another year or so will hopefully become a breeder.
A couple more interesting observations
about Mabel -- she was very aggressive towards other passage red-tails
when we hunted. She would take off and chase other red-tails away,
sometimes driving them from perch to perch until the other hawks
departed. Also, once when hawking, I saw an injured golden eagle,
and I managed to pin it down and pick it up to take to rehab.
I wondered how I would get Mabel AND the eagle both back to my
truck. No problem! Mabel saw me holding the golden eagle and got
jealous and flew over and landed on my gloved hand, which was
holding one eagle foot. Mabel landed on my the eagle's foot and
my glove and rode back with me to my truck. She was not intimidated
by that much larger eagle! I miss
Mabel and feel sure she is doing well in the wild, and not missing
me a bit.
COMMENT FROM THE CONSERVANCY PRESIDENT
In an e-mail exchange
after receiving the above from Stan, I replied by stating that
I thought that 99.99% of the white man population would most likely
disagree with me, but that I was 110% sure that Mabel Red Tailed
remembered him. I would not venture to speculate to what degree
Mabel misses Stan, but I am sure that she remembers him.
I intend no effort
towards changing minds or opinions on this matter; the comment
is presented as something to think about in pondering the beauty
of nature and inter species relationships. The opinion expressed
is based upon personal experience with wild and domesticated feathered
friends. It is something anyone can discover for themselves providing
they commit the time, the appropriate patience, and the focus
of an open mind.
Lest someone take
an inappropriate inference from this statement I will state that
I am neither Native American (in the American Indian sense), nor
am I a falconer at this point.
The point of the matter is that
we cannot assume that we know what animals (birds) think and that
in itself is a matter of much debate among those of the scientific
world. Discussions of anthropmorphism may even become heated so
to speak. We effect that which we study, particularly in the study
of animal behavior, unless we are extremely careful. Falconry
is unique in that no other endevor allows us to come so close
to a truly wild individual of the feathered people. If we close
our minds we fail to lean the knowledge presented by the opportunity.
