Scavenger Hunt

by Megan Antosy

P.J. SIMONIS IS A POPULAR GUY. I went up to the Boardwalk to meet him one afternoon. He was at 11th Street, so I started walking south and spotted him. He stands out even in the summer crowds on the boards.

Carrying a large bird of prey on your arm will do that.

As I stepped towards him, I passed a news crew setting up for a live shot, pointing at the guy carrying a hawk excitedly and discussing the seagull abatement program. P.J. was talking to a couple of college-aged guys about the bird, standing under the Children’s Pavilion. After the one boy was finished asking questions, P.J. prompted the other one. When he didn’t have any questions, P.J. recommended taking a picture of the bird.

If you’ve seen P.J. or one of the other falconers walking the Boardwalk, you know they attract a crowd pretty quickly. In the few steps it took to meet up to P.J., someone asked if their daughter could take a picture with the bird. P.J. placed her a safe distance in front of him for the snap. Afterwards, we started walking south, along with fellow falconer Paul Totten, talking about interactions with the public and all the

Last summer, P.J. met a little girl named Olivia, who was fascinated by his falcon. She asked a lot of questions, and by the end of the day, stood near him and answered other people’s questions. P.J. went on to name an owl after her. Human Olivia and owl Olivia met recently. -photo by Susan Allen, @what.sue.seas

questions they get asked.

“Well, if I have a hawk, they ask if it’s a falcon. If I have a falcon, they ask if it’s a hawk. They ask if it can talk. What tricks it can do. Is it a rescue bird?”

P.J. is a falconer who works with raptors – hawks, falcons, owls, and eagles. While I was walking with him, he was carrying a Harris’s Hawk named Lilly, on his arm. He had been working with her for six weeks. She was watching some seagulls fly over. I was surprised to see a seagull; I thought the raptors were there to chase the seagulls away completely.

“You’ll see seagulls fly over. If you look down on the beach, they’re on the beach. They’re doing what gulls are supposed to do. We basically push them back to the water so they act like gulls. They’ll have to forage for crabs and clams again. They were in a situation where they had unlimited food supply, but no predators up here, so they got more and more and more brazen.”

But, if the raptors are trained to chase and not eat the seagulls, what do they eat? What would they eat in the wild?

“We feed them quail. In the wild, they’d go after jackrabbits in the desert and small game birds, stuff like that. They’re desert hunting birds. They’re native to New Mexico and Arizona,” said P.J.

The seagulls would return to the Boardwalk within a week without the raptors. The goal of the raptors is to give the laughing gulls anxiety. As we walked, P.J. pointed out a gull who was posted as the lookout. Eventually, he flew away and called to his fellow seagulls that there was a raptor presence.

This is the second year of the seagull abatement program in Ocean City. When the program debuted last year, it garnered world-wide attention. Falconers like P.J. were put in the spotlight, but his journey began many years ago.

“I saw a show about a falconer when I was 12 years old. I was laying on the floor in my grandfather’s house, watching some kind of nature show. That was probably back in the mid '80s or so,” said P.J.

Later in life, he found that it fit with his career path.

“It was a natural progression. I was training hunting dogs and then I was working in a forestry program on Halsey’s Island and there was a nesting pair of eagles there and it triggered the memory from watching the show,” he said.

Intrigued, he went to a meeting in Swedesboro. “A falconer put a Harris’s Hawk just like this on my fist, and I was sold. I knew that I was either going to figure out to make a living doing this or I was just going to live in the woods with my hawk. I was pretty good with either one. So now I do half the year making money, and half the year living in the woods with my hawk.”

Taking care of a raptor, as you’d expect, is not as simple as taking the bird to your local vet.

“There aren’t a lot of avian vets. We as falconers help each other out and learn how to take care of them ourselves. Paul and I inoculated this bird yesterday for West Nile.”

However, veterinarians do help with any prescriptions the birds may need.

After I said goodbye to P.J. and Lilly, I walked past Manco and Manco Pizza. There were people sitting on the Boardwalk with pizza boxes that they picked up from the front counter. They had the boxes sprawled out, eating.

There wasn’t a seagull around.

SO, HOW DO YOU BECOME A FALCONER?

It all starts with a state test during your apprentice program. If you get an 80 percent or better on the test, you have to find a sponsor which is either a general or a master falconer. They will agree to help you through the process. You will have a hawk in your possession for 24 months.

“It doesn’t have to be the same hawk, it can be two hawks, but you have to have a hawk in your possession for 24 months,” said falconer P.J. Simonis

You build a facility for your hawk, called a muse. The state will come out to inspect it, making sure you have food and supplies for your animal. Then, you receive a permit to go and trap juvenile red tails (born within the last year).

“Once you trap that juvenile hawk, Your sponsor teaches you how to ‘man’ it, basically teaching it how to trust you and come back to you.”