Taking Flight

From peregrine falcons to eurasian eagle owls, the Ohio School of Falconry has been bringing Columbus face-to-face with birds of prey for nearly a decade

By Jack McLaughlin / Photos by Sumner Howells / Story Design by Tori Smith

The sport of falconry has had its talons in Joe Dorrian since he was just ten years old.

If you ask Dorrian, it started when he—a fifth grader at St. Timothy’s Grade School on the northwest side of Columbus— read Jean Craighead George’s novel My Side of the Mountain, wherein the book’s teenage protagonist raises a wild falcon to help him hunt while living off the land.

“That was the spark that caused me for two years to carry around a little leather glove and a whistle, just in case I ran across a hawk or a falcon,” he said with a laugh.

While Dorrian never did encounter a stray raptor—even after he hauled reclaimed wooden pallets up from the creek near his house to build an enclosure in the garage of his childhood home—the bird from George’s book had already taken hold of his imagination, and has never truly relinquished its grip.

Even after Dorrian went on to serve as a successful executive coach in Columbus’ corporate world for more than 25 years, a not-so-small part of him still felt called by the world of raptors.

“I’ve been a falconer for more than two decades. At first, I had my vocation, and then my passion on the side,” he said. “Eventually, it came to the point where I wanted to combine the two.”

So in 2014, after following falconry as a hobby for 10 years and serving as the first Apprentice Director of the Ohio Falconry Club from 2009 to 2015, he launched the Ohio School of Falconry (OSF), which ever since has served as a premiere way to experience birds of prey face-to-face in the Buckeye State.

“The foundation of our program is built around getting people up close and personal with raptors,” Dorian said.

The word “falconry” refers to the sport of hunting wild game with a trained raptor, a sport that has been practiced by humans for thousands of years, although it began primarily as a means of gathering food. Lucky both for the squeamish and the zoologically curious, OSF’s instructional classes do not include hunting, and the group involves much more than just falcons.

Currently, its roster of birds includes animals like red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, African augur buzzards and even a massive Eurasian eagle owl named Henson (who also does commercial and wedding work).

Held at historic Camp Mary Orton on the city’s far north side, the school is built upon a pair of foundational classes, Introduction to Falconry and Walk with Hawks.

The former, a two-hour course that teaches the basics of falconry and birds of prey, also allows visitors to handle and fly birds using a leather falconry glove. As its name suggests, the three-hour Walk with Hawks class includes much of the same basic information, while adding an hour-long stroll through Camp Mary Orton alongside—you guessed it—birds of prey.

“The main difference In Walk with Hawks is we cast [a falconry term] the bird into a tree and go for a walk in the woods. This means you have birds that come shooting down to your glove from 100-150 feet down,” Dorrian said with a laugh.

No matter which raptors are involved, OSF is still committed to its goal of educating. Interestingly enough, while corporate leadership coaching and falconry might not immediately seem like they have much in common, the OSF founder regularly finds himself pulling from lessons learned at his previous job.

“I started to notice that, whether I was coaching humans or working with hawks, the foundation of my relationships was all the same: It always came down to trust,” he said.

At the time it opened, OSF was one of the only free-standing falconry schools that existed. In the state of Ohio, it’s illegal to handle a raptor without the requisite permits, meaning there are few real-world scenarios where a regular person would have the opportunity (legally or otherwise) to learn about raptors face to face.

The Ohio School of Falconry is trying to change that, and introduce the Buckeye State to the natural world in a way many never even dreamed of. Well, those who didn’t read My Side of the Mountain, at least.

“I remember there was a student who was about nine years old. He was from a rough part of town and said he had never seen a peregrine falcon or an owl before, but he studied up on all the facts and was more enthused about anyone,” Dorrian said. “Then to have the hawk fly and land on his glove, he sort of said something under his breath. It took me a second to make it out, but I’ll never forget. He said: ‘Coolest thing ever.’ I know nobody else heard it, but I know the impact it made.”

To learn more and to schedule your own class, visit ohioschooloffalconry.com