Happy 3rd Gotcha Day, Kaya!

Three years ago today we drove to Hessen and picked up our girl - Kaya, our Harris's hawk - from her breeder. Since then our daily lives have largely revolved around her, hawking, and falconry. And we're loving every minute!

All photos are from Sandra Bäder of Pfotodog, unless otherwise captioned.

We've completed three successful crow-hawking seasons with Kaya, making a lifetime total of 164 Beutestücke (successful kills) so far and an uncountable number of misses.

During the hawking season (August 1 to February 15) I or we are out with her every 2-4 days depending on weather, and every outing is an adventure. Hawking can be dangerous and we've had a few close calls, including the worst which ended with me standing in a road trying to stop traffic while she flew back to me. From one of the photos above you can see how low to the ground she flies - using the ground effect to conserve energy. But roads are not avoidable and so we have to consider a whole lot of factors in the few seconds between spotting a crow and releasing her.

Hawk acrobatics: catching a tidbit in mid-air during training

We are often asking if we would want to fly a different bird at some point, and our answer is no. We absolutely adore her and hope she will live healthily and injury-free for the 20 years or so a Harris's hawk can live with a falconer, and by then we'll be in our 70s. We might be ready to hang up our leather gloves by then, although to be honest I cannot imagine not hawking when autumn rolls around.

I'll cut off my words here and finish with more photos from Sandra.

Here's to another safe and successful season!

Until next time - and I'll try to write again before her next Gotcha Day! LOL

Falknersheil!

Happy Gotcha Day, Kaya!

Two years ago today we picked up our darling from her breeder in Hessen, and our lives were changed forever.

I still think back to those first days of sitting quietly in her mews as she was secured to a bow perch near her bathing pool and a few toys, letting her get used to me and earning her trust. Once or twice a day I’d try to entice her to stand on my glove to eat a thawed and tasty chick.We succeeded on Day 4.

She’s not just a darling, of course. She’s a fierce hunter! During her second hunting season she expanded her prey spectrum to include beyond crows (her main prey), pigeons, magpies, a duck and 2 Egyptian geese! We’re looking forward to seeing what prey presents itself this season.

Kaya is now two years old and in her third flight, as we say in German (zwei Jahre alt und im dritten Flug). “In her third flight” means that she’s in her 3^rd hunting season. To be fair, the season has started but we haven’t yet because Kaya hasn’t finished her molt yet. She’s still growing new feathers but we’ll start her with some light training on the creance (Langfessel, a long light leash) this week. I am really looking forward to getting started again. I like to think she will enjoy more action again as well and the chance to refill her freezer with new meals.

I'll finish this Gotcha Day post with a photo dump from the past year with Kaya and what we've been up to.

Sitting on her favorite bench

Upside down head, trying to understand what she sees

First hawking success of the season

Manteling over her kill to guard it

Vacation accommodations

Another success

On her favorite bench in the setting sun

During a falconry meet near Freiburg

Floofed up on a cold day standing on her pillar

Winter crow

Time for a poo sample

This is called a "warble" - a double wing stretch

First visit to the veterinarian, in the waiting room

At an expo - some of the PR work we do

With saker falcon Smilla at our favorite local restaurant's
Mittelalterliches Bierfest.

Playing in her mews with pine cones

Bad hair day after a rain shower, which she loves

Riding in June

More PR work at a Jägerfest in Böblingen

Another Jägerfest, this time in Freudenstadt

Our adventure continues! We look forward to each new day with Kaya and hope for another successful and healthy, injury-less hawking season. 

Until next time...

Falknersheil!!

Crow Hawking Diaries: Curious Horses

 OMG, what I would give to have photos or video of today’s hawking experience! 

M and I took a guest and Kaya crow hawking not far from Horb and it was tough going at first. We saw hundreds of Rotmilane and common buzzards, but not so many crows. Those we did see flew out of range too quickly. But twice we passed a horse farm with an occupied pasture where there were a bunch of crows. Each time we drove past, those who were out of the pasture flew into it knowing they were safe there. I won’t launch Kaya into a pasture full of horses, especially with an electric fence. I finally asked M to drive to the farm, and I found the owners outside. I explained what we were doing, they were enthusiastic, told me to go ahead and the horses won’t be bothered, and showed me where to unplug the electricity to the fence. We got back in the car, drove about 150 meters, and I tossed her into the pasture at the unsuspecting crows. 

What can I say? I love horses!

The one she picked out had taken off, and she flew after it in hot pursuit. Once the crow is airborne it’s unlikely she’ll get it, so I got ready to call her back. But she wasn’t going to let that crow go, and she grabbed it out of the air! She pulled it to the ground, I ducked through the fence and raced the 50 meters to her to do my job. I’d asked M to come as quickly as he could, and thank goodness. The horses found the goings-on quite interesting and meandered over to have a look. Kaya was ok with that up to a point, but they kept coming closer. By then M was there and I told him to stand between the horses and me so I could finish things with Kaya. That was probably also when I said, “OMG, you have to get a photo of this!” He stood protectively between us facing the horses, but more and more of them came up and formed a sort-of U-shape around us. Kaya was secured and still had a death grip on the deceased crow but wanted to get the hell away from the horses. Among the steeds there was some commotion and I hoped M wouldn’t get kicked. 

I collected Kaya with her crow and headed back to the fence. M followed.

So did the horses.

And several cows, one that looked rather butch.

Kaya got her reward for a job extremely well done while we and our guest recapped the events on the safe side of the fence. Then we went back to the farm to talk with the owners and tell them we’d been successful! They were happy to hear it. The woman said she sometimes gets dived-bombed by crows when she’s riding, and the man said the farmers around grumble about the crows picking in the fields and destroying young crops.

The Wasserbüffelhof

We stopped at the water buffalo farm vending machine for an ice cream treat and had quite the audience of others shopping there. Then the owner of the buffalo farm also came by and chatted with us – he also said he’s thrilled to hear we’re after crows in the area.

A family-friendly photo of Kaya manteling
a kill from a few days ago)

Kaya got a leg and a wing from her crow in her mews when we returned and is so stuffed she can’t see her feet. But she’s screaming about her adventure to the neighborhood, or perhaps she’s just screaming at our neighbor who is minding his own business and trying to get some yard work done.

Our season officially opened with Kaya's first success on September 3rd, and since then she's grabbed 7 crows and her first-ever Elster (magpie)!

Until next time...

Falknersheil!

Crow Hawking Diaries: Season Recap

The 2022-2023 Beizjagdsaison (hawking season) came to an end yesterday, on February 15th. This was Kaya's first season and our first season with Kaya. She is 10 months old now and scored 22 crows for the season. We are proud of her!

Singing her victory song on a snowy day 
in the Black Forest after her 19th crow

She went from being afraid of us, the first humans with whom she had real contact, to enjoying spending time with us, to developing and showing us her charming personality, to also becoming a skilled crow catcher.

Ok, she's had ups and downs, so "skilled" is somewhat of an exaggeration for now. Sometimes she was just lucky. But she's got potential!

Her score seen more clearly is

Kaya: 21 successful days

Crows: 32 successful days

Remaining crows in the 18 Reviere where we hunt: 1145? (feels like 10,000)

That last number is a guess, but it is important to keep in mind that Kaya might get a crow one day, but there are usually 50-100 more circling in the sky above her who didn't get got. 

There were only a few days in which Kaya caught her crow on her first flight out. More often she'd had an average of 6 flights but no success. So while we went out hawking on 53 days, on each of those days anywhere from 2 to 8 crows escaped unscathed despite our efforts - meaning roughly 200 crows got away. And one goose.

The season ended somewhat abruptly on Wednesday when our friend and driver misjudged where she should turn around on a farm path. 

Oops.

Br phoned the Jagdpächterin whose territory we were hunting in, sent our coordinates via WhatsApp, and she called back soon after to say a hunter friend of hers would be over within 15 minutes with a Geländewagen to pull us out. That saved us having to call ADAC (the German AAA), which would have taken a long time and cost too much. It might have been fun to see the tow truck guy's face when he arrived and saw our hawks, though.

I gave Kaya a snack while we waited.

The most important thing is that we gave her hunting opportunities as often as we could, and she came out of the season healthy and uninjured - hawking can be dangerous business! - despite one close call with a fence and that goose, or rather that goose's pals.

Her tail in that photo above looks rather shabby, I know. We had to repair two feathers during the season, one broke again, and a third broke a short enough time ago that we decided she could make it to the end of the season. I'm told young birds aren't very careful with their tails while hunting, but she'll learn with time. For now, goodness gracious, bring on the Mauser (molt)!

We'll still train her for a while until she doesn't feel like it anymore, and then she'll start her Mauser. She'll gradually get more food each day without having to work for it until we figure out what a day's serving size should be. Once a week she'll have a detox day of fasting. Sometime in March she'll start dropping feathers one at a time a few days apart and new ones will grow in their place. She should be ready to hunt again in August or September.

So what about that goose? One time out we passed a group of Nilgänse (Egyptian geese) lying in a field. I know how wehrhaft (defensive) geese are, I've seen Hekate repeatedly show us that if we want a Nilgans, we're going to have to catch it ourselves, and I while I don't mind gutting a crow after a successful hunt, I'm not all that interested in geese. But I was encouraged to give her a try, so I sent her out. She definitely got the goose and clung onto it at first while its pals came to its defense, honking wildly and bashing with their wings. I ran toward the commotion, seeing nothing but wings everywhere, and yelled her name, not knowing what else to yell although I was trying to scare away the other geese, and by the time I got to her she'd given up and the gaggle was fleeing. Kaya was standing on the ground a few feet away, looking as if to say, "WTF?!?" Can't say I blame her, but she forgave me when I gave her a juicy tidbit.

These are Nilgänse.
They're an invasive species and don't belong here.

On our last day of hawking, Kaya got two crows for the first time! Not at the same time, but Br and I were able to entice her off the first crow with a distraction wing (a wing from a previously killed crow) so she could continue hunting. I do feel like I witnessed the moment she realized that she was only picking at a wing when she had definitely caught an entire crow. She was sitting on my glove, paused with the wing, looked at me and furrowed her brow. Ok, not really, but that's what it seemed like. 

That's our goal for next season - to be able to get her away from one crow with a reward and then to go on and keep hunting - so I'm glad we ended on that note.

We had a good season and are proud of her and how far she's come. And now she gets to relax and get fed without having to work for her supper, while I get to start on spring cleaning and putting this house back in order.

Until next time...

Falknersheil!

Crow Hawking Diaries: The 15th Crow

I‘ve been spending all my time with Kaya and therefore neglecting my blog and my household duties! It’s astonishing how much time one can devote to a raptor, though we spend more time interacting with her than we’d need to.

We’ve recently hit another milestone. On Dreikönigstag, the last holiday of the Christmas season, M and I went crow hawking with Kaya alone – that is, without a more experienced falconer with us – and Kaya got her 15^th crow! The three of us have been out alone before, but we were never successful. Returning home without quarry isn’t all that unusual and happens even when we do go hawking with experienced falconers. The odds are in the crows’ favor most of the time.

This Revier is about a 20-minute drive from home and where we have been invited to hunt deer and wild boar as well. We have sat frequently in Hochsitze and have had sightings of deer, but we have as yet had no good chance to shoot and therefore no hunting success. The Jagdpächter (hunter-tenants) allow us to go crow hawking there as well.

There is a Biogasanlage and farm in the Revier and we have often seen a murder of crows hanging around near there. I’ve missed several great opportunities by not being ready, so the other day I was prepared before I was sure there were crows on that field. On the far side of the building we all saw four or five crows on the field at a perfect distance for Kaya, and all but one took off too soon. I launched Kaya because the last one stayed on the ground nonplussed by her fleeing friends, Kaya flew up above and came crashing down on the confused crow and held on while they both screamed at each other. I ran over to them, “took care of” the crow*, praised Kaya for her good work, secured her to my glove and M snapped a quick photo.

Kaya's manteling over her prize to 
prevent me from stealing some noms for myself.

*Kaya is a Grifftöter (a raptor who kills mainly with her claws). In the wild, a Grifftöter will grab the prey, hang on, start to pluck and eat while the prey dies rather slowly. Nature is harsh. We falconers get to our bird as quickly as possible and end the prey’s life quickly and more humanely than the hawk would.

Our next step is to entice Kaya off the deceased crow using smaller bits of meat she likes – that day I’d thawed a Wachtel (quail) and portioned it to be ready. She was quite happy with the quail but had a Beutekrampf (the talons of one foot were cramp-locked on the crow) and even though she wasn’t interested in it anymore, she couldn’t release her grip. We tried everything we could think of and had seen others do, but in the end we just had to wait it out while she munched on the quail still attached firmly to the crow. 15 minutes after she’d caught the crow, she finally released it when going after the last tidbits we had left.

We were a happy trio in the end, because M and I felt we’d finally accomplished this on our own, and Kaya was stuffed with quail.

By now Kaya is up to 16 crows, which is quite good for a young bird only 8 1/2 months old! But lately it's so windy with strong gusts that we're forced to take some days off. Crow season ends on February 15th, so hopefully the weather will cooperate again soon.

Here’s to more hawking adventures!

Crow Hawking Diaries: The Fence

On our first crow hawking trip of the year Kaya and I faced something we don’t ever want to have happen again! Anyone who goes hunting or indeed, simply has an animal – working or not – knows accidents and injuries are always a possibility. But when the reality hits nothing can prepare you for it.

We were out with my mentor (B) and her Harris hawk, Hekate, in a new Revier. At one point I launched Kaya at some crows that were sitting well on a field about 20 meters from the road. The crows scurried off and Kaya gave chase even though once the crows take to flight their odds of escaping are better than Kaya’s odds of catching one. As I was getting a tidbit out to call her back, B shouted, “She’s caught in the fence! Run to her!” I took off across the muddy field as fast as I could, running the 60 meters or so to where Kaya was screaming. She looked at me and I swear somehow knew I was going to help her. She didn’t panic more, at any rate, and thank goodness. She was indeed stuck in the fence somehow, and I couldn’t tell right away how or if the fence were barbed wire (it was not). I could see that her head was stuck. I threw off my leather falconer’s glove, talked calmly to her, and felt for where the fence wire was that must be trapping her. It seemed her neck was stuck between the straight top wire and the chain link below it, so I held the top wire and pulled gently on the mesh. That allowed her to get her head out, and she reached out immediately for me, grabbing my ungloved left arm tightly in her talons.

I lowered her to the ground and kept talking gently to her, stroking her and looking and feeling for blood or signs of any wounds. I saw and felt no signs of either, but she was still hanging onto my arm and screaming. Sharp as her talons are, I didn’t mind. B had reached us by then, and eventually Kaya calmed down enough to let go of my arm. I put my glove back on, got her up, and we trudged back across the field to our car.

Kaya seemed ok, but before we headed off again we flew her between us twice to see if she were willing and if anything looked askew. She flew as usual, and we determined everything was fine.

Neither of us had seen that fence in the distance, but even if we had known it was there, I would have set her at those crows. The fence was at least 60 meters away, and usually Kaya breaks off her chase before then. There are all kinds of potential dangers Kaya could face: a car or truck when we’re close to a road, a Habicht (goshawk) when we’re close to a forest, dogs - especially the unleashed ones, and manmade hazards like fences, wires, electrical lines and so on.

It is our job as falconers to look out for these and other dangers and not let our bird go when it’s not safe. When Kaya takes off, she only sees her quarry, not potential dangers. I was reminded that day of how fragile her life is and how quickly things can turn south. We were lucky. 

Hawking can be dangerous, but the safe alternative – not hawking and staying where there are no dangers – would not be in her best interest. She is a raptor and it is in her nature to hunt. If she could choose, I don’t think she’d prefer to stay in her mews. That's safe, but pretty boring. Her body language while hawking tells me that she really wants to do this. When she sees a crow, I can hardly hold her back to wait for the right moment. She wants to GO!

But if she had her druthers, I think she’d happily avoid fences in the future. And that would be fine with me, too!

An Unexpected Bath

Today, after a Corona-Zwangspause (forced break due to my Corona infection) we finally went out crow hawking again. The drive to the meeting point, where I met Br and a new Jungfalknerin took 90 minutes, and both birds were finished within an hour! It was a successful morning, and after a such a long break I was relieved and proud of Kaya for getting her crow.

When out hawking you never know what you'll experience, and almost every time I come home with a tale to tell M (who has mercifully been spared Corona, despite my infection including symptoms and the two of us not really isolating from each other as we should have).

Kaya just after our Zwangspause, looking wistfully at crows
and wondering if we're ever going hunting again.

I'd arrived at our meeting point about 8 minutes late, and in the mean time Br and JF (Jungfalknerin) decided to take a round with Hekate and see what they could find. I got Kaya out of her travel box, attached her telemetry sender, showed her that it was raining, and put her back into her dry box to wait. About 20 minutes later I saw Br's car approaching the parking lot, disappear around the curve, and that was it. 5-6 minutes went by and they didn't appear. I'd seen another truck over there and thought maybe they'd run into trouble, when suddenly my phone rang. It was Br. Fifty meters from where I was waiting, Hekate had her prey!

Right, so she was done for the day because it was a special kill. And a muddy one!

So Hekate got a treat in her travel box and got to nibble while the three of us took Kaya out. 

We drove about and got a good look at the usual spots, spotted a murder of crows (did you know a group of crows is called "a murder"?) on a field in a good position, turned the corner, Kaya kept her cool, I launched her at just the right time, and BAMM! She had her crow, too! That was less than 30 minutes after we'd started.

Well done, Lass!

Check out my muddy boots!

I had to pluck her and her prize out of that muddy field and bring her over to the less-muddy road where she could fill herself up while I scraped off my boots. Since she's still learning she gets to enjoy her kill before we pack her up again, which means she gets to eat until she can't anymore.

The three of us enjoyed her success on top of Hekate's, chatted about all kinds of things in the rain, and when Kaya showed signs of slowing, traded her crow for a yummy thawed chick - which wasn't easy because her right claw was cramped into the crow. I put her soaking wet into the travel box with a drumstick and we returned to the parking lot.

The drive there (near Kehl in the Rhein valley) was relaxed but crappy because it was pitch dark most of the way, rainy, foggy, serpentiny, and the headlights of on-coming cars are blinding in those conditions. The drive back was much nicer, though it still rained the whole way. I stopped at the top of the Schwarzwald to take a photo of the beautiful scenery.

Ha!

The fall colors really were quite beautiful, but of course not where I could easily stop. Kaya wanted to get home anyway.

When we got home I put a wing from her crow into the mews on the perch we call "the balance beam" but put her inside on her perch in the sun room to wait for M to return for lunch and to hopefully dry off a bit.

I don't know if she looks as wet as she is, 
but she is WET!

Here you see her Kropf (crop) full of crow -
the bulge under her throat.

I had her step on the scale out of curiosity, and she was 1100 grams - 200 grams more than she was when we set out this morning! That might be the most she's packed on in one day since we've had her. Not all falconers let their raptors fill up on their first crows, and while I see the sense of maintaining a more constant weight, this is how Br does it and we're ok with it, too. Kaya had a "diet day" yesterday, which raptors in the wild often have as well, albeit unplanned, but today she got to see that a successful hunt means a full belly (and crop)!

When I brought her into her mews, she quickly spied the wing on her perch and flew to it as if she were starving. But flying with a full Kropf is a little awkward, so she missed what she was aiming at and only caught the perch on the bottom, dangling there momentarily like a bat. She regained her footing, grabbed the wing, and then thought a moment where she wanted to take it. She always opts for one of the corners of the mews, so she jumped down. Again the full crop and the crow wing in her clenched fist caused her some trouble, and her flight to the ground was more of "falling without style" and she landed in her bathtub!

Good thing she spent 20 minutes drying off...

She's now standing on her waterlogged dessert, half manteling (because she can never be sure I don't want a bite of that deliciousness for myself) and likely confused. I backed up and assured her the dessert was hers alone, but I couldn't help snap a photo as I encouraged her to get out of the tub.

Then she dragged her dessert into the corner, gave me the side-eye again, and just sat there. She was likely too stuffed to really tuck in.

"Mine-mine-oh-god-I'm-full-Mine!"

But she's been quiet in her mews for several hours, forcing out a squawk only now and then for heaven knows what reason. I was happy to see (on our surveillance camera) that she was able to fly back up to a corner perch and then over to her balance beam, which is under the roof. She's still there, doing extreme preening. It's surely going to take until at least tomorrow to get those feathers back in order. But it's not cold, and if we're in doubt later we can bring her inside to sleep where it's dry.

I think Kaya is proud of herself.
And she should be!

I am SO glad to be healthy again and back in action with Kaya. It's a long drive sometimes, but it's worth it because she needs that success. Going for walks and sitting on benches is nice and all, but she was hatched to hunt! And for a young bird, she's good at it.

Until next time...

Falknersheil!!