A Falcon's-Eye View of Extended Tame Hack by Teton Raptor Center

A Falcon’s-Eye View of Extended Tame Hack

by Jason Jones

here have been several articles written regarding the benefits of and techniques for hacking and tame hacking falcons. This article is not meant to recap what has already been reported. Rather, I wanted to provide some insight into the daily activities of young falcons while at extended tame hack with the hope that others would see that it may just be worth the risk. This is not an account of the whole project, just some highlights. My falcons were also wearing high-definition video cameras while they were at tame hack. Reviewing hours of video from the backs of these falcons provided some surprising data regarding their daily ventures. I’ve included a few still photos that truly illuminate the inaccessible perspective which every falconer has dreamed of since before the days of King Frederick II – a falcon’s-eye view of the world. The clarity is not perfect, but I hope you appreciate the angle. Even after twenty years of falconry and falcon breeding, last summer’s project ranks as the most entertaining and enlightening experiences I have had with raptors. I think it is fairly well accepted that the physical abilities, socialization, and mental development of a young falcon are jump started by a tame hack period. The criticisms of tame hack methods often relate to the tendency of young falcons to spend more time sitting than flying. This is true early on, but the young falcons soon start covering the sky after about three weeks of freedom. Unfortunately, this is usually about the same time that the hack period is brought to a close and formal training begins. The obvious reason for limiting the freedom period in the young falcons is the inevitable onset of the dispersal instinct. Nobody wants to see their new hope for a great falconry season head permanently south on a warm August breeze. A brief account of the highlights from my experience with the prolonged tame hack of a group of five imprint falcons leads me to believe, that under the right conditions, the benefits of a prolonged tame hack can outweigh the risks. 56

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Most hack and tame hacks are limited to about three to four weeks post fledging. At this point, a traditionally hacked young falcon will likely start to make wild kills and disperse shortly after. I’ve spoken to falconers that have had adult falcons “on hack” for long periods of time. I pulled up to Dennis Grisco’s house last year just in time to see his adult tiercel peregrine drop from the sky and buzz a Harris’s hawk on his lawn. If I remember correctly, Dennis said that tiercel has been at tame hack for two years. As adults, a falcon can be essentially homed to an area with minimal fear of loss. Not so with young falcons because the dispersal instinct is strong in the first year of life. Last season I wanted to test the limits of tame hack with a group of young imprinted falcons and document this period of freedom in a new way. I couldn’t have been in a better position to do so. This tame hack project took place at my work – the Teton Raptor Center, a raptor education and rehabilitation center located in the beautiful mountain valley hamlet of Wilson, Wyoming. The center sits at just over 6,000 feet above sea level, with towering 10,000 foot elevation and peaks of the Tetons at its back door. I used five imprinted falcons

for this project – two lanners, two peregrines and a white gyrkin. This project provided visitors to the Center with the unique opportunity to observe a group of playful young falcons as they developed into incredible speed machines. Early on, guests could watch the falcons flying around our barns and playing in the parking lot. Later, I would receive phone calls reporting the exploits of our young falcons from miles away. My falcons were easy to recognize, they were the ones wearing cameras and would walk into open doors to see if there was anyone to play with inside. Of course, the white gyrkin got the most attention, being striking in appearance and incredibly playful. The falcons used were of varying hatch dates and were out on tame hack between five and ten weeks each. I was able to prolong the tame hack period by changing the feeding schedule at the point in which the falcons would normally have been taken in to begin formal falconry training. I released them every morning at sunrise, except for the few days when I was traveling and unable to take them in that night. The oldest lanneret was out for one day short of ten NAFA JOURNAL 2011

weeks. I admit that I was lucky that none of these falcons met grim ends during this period since the faced the same hazards as wild birds, including cars, fences, power lines, foxes and lots of eagles. I have plenty of video footage that chronicles the close calls these falcons had. From the videos, I could see how they tried to find creative ways to kill themselves each day for the first couple weeks.

Loss and Loss Prevention

Tame hacking can decrease your odds of losing your falcon, but I’ll cover that comes later. I always use two transmitters, with fresh batteries, on each falcon I fly. The falcons at tame hack were no exception. I had planned to keep them at hack until one of them was lost for the night. I often used telemetry to see where the falcons were in the valley, but I didn’t call them down when I found them. I wanted to give them the opportunity to return to the barns each day. I only had to use telemetry once to retrieve one of the falcons during this hack period, although it was a “big once.”

The oldest lannerette flew about 75 miles in one direction, over two mountain ranges in one day. This happened when he had been out for 69 days. I had to get a plane the following morning to pick up a signal. After chasing him for two days in the truck I was finally able to get within sight of him on the third night. It was August, with sunshine and temperatures in the mid 80s. He was soaring all day long, from one valley to the next. I ended up getting him back at night, in a goup of pines at the top of a mountain as he came down to the lure under a flashlight. Imprints are great that way. Interestingly, he had not lost a gram of weight in three days. From his casting the following morning, I could see he had been catching flying insects. I speculate that discovering his ability to catch insects in the air prompted his dispersal. Tame hacking is loss prevention if your hunting or training areas are anywhere near the hack area. The best field I have for training in this valley is about ten miles away from the center. Even though I can balloon in my parking lot, it’s too enclosed to move onto game training with the falcons. I cut the falcons

Porgy and Jason impressed with the tiercel peales after it made it to the balloon at 4000 ft straight overhead. Photo by Roger Smith. 58

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Jason and gyrkin just after he caught the balloon at 5,000 feet. Photo by Roger Smith.

When training these imprint falcons en masse, I would simply move onto the next falcon when one flew away. Sometimes the falcon would come back, while the next in line falcon is airborne and we’d have a group lesson. Just as often the wayward falcon would fly back to the barns and be waiting for my return. I lost the oldest lannerette, who was no is his second season, from different locations in the valley a couple times this summer while doing demonstrations. Each time, he returned to the barns from miles away, faster than I could catch up to him. This familiarization with the hack area stays with the falcon for life and proves to be useful at some point. You never know when a falcon may escape without telemetry or you may have telemetry fail. These falcons learned early on to navigate the hazards they are going to encounter the rest of their life. How many of us have seen one of our chamber-raised or traditionally trained, imprint falcon sit calmly, plucking a kill, as an eagle glides in from the horizon? We run till we can’t breathe, whistling and screaming franticly, trying to scare the eagle off or beat it to our falcon. Our birds are unappreciative of our efforts as they are blissfully ignorant to the whole likely

outcome of the scenario. These tame hacked falcons had many opportunities to interact with wild raptors and ground predators. They learn, as wild falcons do, that they can’t simply view other predators as passing scenery. I hunted the white gyrkin on sage grouse most of last fall and he was as aware of eagles as any passage falcon I’ve flown. While on tame hack, the whole flock of falcons would begin to “kaak” and take to the air when an eagle was spotted flying nearby.

Physical Abilities

It hasn’t been well documented exactly how far falcons fly when they are at hack, until now. The young falcons in this project didn’t really start flying, really flying hard until they were out for three weeks or so. I have video footage showing they fly longer distances each day than most people would believe. The oldest lannerette would regularly fly from our barns to his favorite snag at the top of Glory Peak in the early afternoon. This is the tallest peak to the west of our center, over four miles away. With a rise in elevation of over 4,000 feet, it takes some effort to get there. At times, the lanner would also fly to the Idaho side of the Teton range and return later that afternoon. NAFA JOURNAL 2011

I also have footage of the peregrines flying along the peaks and cliffs of the Tetons miles away from our barns. The falcons would effortlessly tack back and forth in raging winds along the mountain tops. I included a photo of one of the peregrines flying along cliffs that are over 10,000 feet in elevation and nearly nine miles from the Center. The cool part about this photo is that it was extracted from video taken by another falcon in the group.

anything, especially if one of the others was already chasing it. I started by putting a wing with a smidge of meat hooked to a clip under the balloon, but not securely fastened. One falcon would chase it up, catch it and fly off with the wing. Sometimes one or two of the other falcons would chase him off to scrap over the wing and that was fine. I just reeled the balloon down, put on another wing and put it up again. I would do this a number of times each morning until I was sure each falcon at least had a chance to see the wing be taken off the balloon from a few hundred feet. Later on, it was an easy transition to formal balloon training in our parking lot.

The falcons would often fly long distances together and I’d get footage of one falcon flying, from the camera angle of the second falcon. Have you ever seen a white gyrkin at 2,000 feet from the view of another falcon In this valley we that is stooping down have many windless on him from above? mornings through I have video showing most of August and that all of the falcons, part of September. at times, make linear I only pursued full round trips of 20-30 balloon training with miles within the first the gyrkin and one two hours of the day. peregrine. Both were The white gyrkin was catching the balloon the farthest ranging in at 3,000 feet within the group and made 40 three weeks. It took to 50-mile round trips Porgy McClelland with binos in the usual position for viewing the falcons a couple weeks to get chasing the balloon. Photo by Jason Jones. before six weeks. them really focused because I was trying to reduce their weight as little Compare what these falcons are doing daily while at as possible. The gyr was the faster of the two on tame hack to a typical hunting flight. A typical hunt the ascent, but they could both reach that height with a falcon involves less than twenty minutes of active flight. There are times when the falcons may be in less than fifteen minutes. The limiting factor on up for an hour, but that’s rare unless they are soaring. height was not the falcons, but the balloon. On most windless days, 3,000 feet is where the balloon would Extended hack falcons are flying for hours each day. They chase each other up to 1,000 feet, squabble with typically start to drift. We had a couple of days where wild raptors, catch a thermal to several thousand feet the falcons were able to catch the balloon at just over 5,000 feet of line with minimal drift. I’m not guessing and fly over a mountain. Then they come back to or exaggerating on the height. I used different the Center, take a bath and do it all over again. They colored lines in 300-yard increments which had aren’t just in amazing physical shape, but they learn been tied together and often had witnesses to see the to fly in all conditions as well. All of them knew how balloon training sessions. It was quite an event some to gain height in a thermal or 30 mph winds before I mornings. I had guests and board members who ever started formal training. would come to the parking lot early in the morning, My use of the balloon is as an example of fitness that lay on their backs with binoculars and watch the most longwingers will appreciate. I started balloon falcons chase the balloon into the sky. training these while the falcons were still at hack. The falcons weren’t cut down, but each one would chase

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I was pretty excited the first time I had calm enough air to get the balloon to 4,000 feet for the tiercel peregrine. A few guests and our vice chair, Porgy McClelland, were able to watch that day. Our board chair, Roger Smith, is a falconer and was also there and saw the white gyrkin catch the balloon at 5,000 feet for the first time in early September. Watching the falcons climb into the heavens after the balloon was a lot of fun and really inspiring to watch, but I’ve wandered away from my point. Chasing a balloon to 3,000 feet is not a workout for these falcons. They go from flying for hours each day, to flying for 15 minutes once a day. It was easy for them.

Transition to a Hunting Falcon

Tame hacking doesn’t solve all the problems associated with training a great hunting falcon, but it does help get over some major hurdles. Fitness and knowing how to fly high in the wind were greatly appreciated attributes of the white gykin as I began hunting him on sage grouse last fall. I’m, of course, skipping steps and weeks of training with this gyrkin. Like many gyrs, he had the ability to go high, but had to be shown why. I spent many hours, cumulatively, crouching down in the sage waiting for him to see a need to remount. By midseason he was waiting on at 1000 feet and remounting in good form. The white gyrkin looks like a big white meal plate to every eagle within sight. I’m sure that his eagle savvy gained while at hack was the only reason he was still alive at the end of the last hunting season. Some falconers may ask, “Why not just get a passage?” Making a passage out of these tame hacked birds is not the goal. As falconers, we don’t just want the abilities of a passage, we also want the advantages of a well socialized imprint. Let me use my last passage gyr as an example.

I flew a female passage gyr for the last three seasons. She was a great bird and she had all the physical skills and abilities that I’m touting of the imprint tame hacked falcons, but she also had notable drawbacks. If she caught a grouse in the distance and cropped up before I arrived, she would fly to a rocky outcropping and smile as I tried in vain to coax her down. Then I would try to call her down or, more often, retrap her in the morning. If my imprint gyrkin catches something and crops up before I arrive, he’ll still let me pick him up. In fact, he eagerly waits to be hooded and chauffeured back to his comfy chamber. I think a realistic goal of tame hack should be to make a hunting falcon with a wild falcon’s physical abilities, predator savvy and confidence, while retaining the socialization of an imprint falcon. I plan to repeat the project next year with some modifications geared towards reaching that goal Many thanks to Raptor Ranch for the technological innovations. Happy hawking!

Gyrkin and teal. Photo by Jason Jones.

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