Wild at Heart

Falconer Greg Johnson doesn't try to control the raptors he trains. Instead he builds a partnership based on a bond of trust–one of love's greatest aspects.

BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY RUTH ENGLISH

Greg wasn’t going to take up knitting. He had no interest in singing in a community choir or learning to ballroom dance. He already had a dog. Two dogs, in fact. But he’d seen what could happen. Nothing to do and nowhere to go sounded great in the middle of an outage at Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Power Plant, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. But without purpose and focus, retirement would quickly turn into isolation and boredom. Besides, Greg had not given thirty-two years of his life to a career just to sit around and stare at the walls. While searching the Internet for ideas, he came across a YouTube video on falconry. That was seven years ago. Today, Greg Johnson is one of the 219 falconers in Georgia and the only one in Toombs County.

March 14, 2022: “I’m calling it a season. 2021-2022 has been my most successful season, and today we are ending it on a high note. I took Mary out this morning. It was sunny and cool. I could tell she was ready to hunt…. (Facebook post)

If there is a redeeming quality to Facebook, in my opinion, Greg had found it in his ruminations about falconry and parallels to his Christian faith. I scrolled through post after post about the exploits of the beautiful redtailed hawk he’d given the name Mary. I stopped on October 24, 2021:

This bird, who I named Mary, is mine. I have a special permit, a special license given by the State of Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which allows me to take her from the wild. She belongs to me. I feed her every day. I house her. I make sure she is safe. I even have a camera in her housing to keep a close eye on her. I trained her, and together we create a partnership. A bond built on trust. I love this bird. When you take care of something every day, you get attached. She knows the sound of my voice. She knows the sound of my call. I call to her. She hears my call and responds….

During the time of the above post, Greg had trained two red-tailed hawks he named Mary and Lazarus. Of course, I asked: “Where’s Martha?” Greg smiled. He had captured five hawks this season before settling on which to keep. He turned Martha loose early on simply because she was the smaller of the three. “Typically, females are a third larger than males,” said Greg. “You want a bigger bird for its strength as a hunter.”

“Typically, females are a third larger than males,” said Greg. “You want a bigger bird for its strength as a hunter.”

Greg had named his first hawk after the prophet Elijah. There was a theme here. And, of course, Elisha took up Elijah’s mantle, so he was next. Then, for some reason, Greg’s prophet theme took a strange turn. He named his next two birds Delilah and Rahab the Harlot. He returned to a more prophetic theme by giving his next bird, an American Kestrel, the name Samson. Never mind that the story of this long-haired Judge of Israel was a very complicated story indeed. Still, he’d brought things back around this year with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Then again, naming a bird Lazarus might have been tempting fate. Although no resurrection miracle was needed, Greg did have to spend six weeks nursing Lazarus back to health following a squirrel bite. “When the hawk takes down a squirrel, there is always the risk of a bite,” he explained. “Without proper care, a bite can lead to permanent damage.” With medications and an avian veterinarian’s care, Lazarus completely healed and, in time, was able to be released back into the wild. By then, Mary had become Greg’s main hunting companion.

The unique bond between falconer and raptor has a long history. The ancient sport often referred to as the “sport of Kings” may bring depictions of Atilla the Hun and the Great Khans of Mongolia to mind. But many experts believe there is substantial proof that the history of falconry actually goes back much further than that with references in the epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and on bas-reliefs on ruins discovered during excavations in the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria.

Today, the decision to become a falconer is no small commitment. The process for Greg began with a written test given by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). “[A] pplicants are required to successfully complete an exam (administered by the department) relating to the basic biology, care and handling of raptors, literature on raptors, and laws and regulations pertaining to raptors” (gadnrle.org). And, “passing” the test means answering at least 80% correctly. The next step was finding a falconer with a general or master license to sponsor him. (A general falconer has completed his two-year apprenticeship. Master level may be reached after practicing falconry five years with a general license.)

“The person who sponsors you,” said Greg, “has to be willing to be your mentor during your two years of apprenticeship,” said Greg. Fortunately for him, Steve Hein, a master falconer and the executive director of Georgia Southern University’s Center for Wildlife Education and the Lamar Q Ball, Jr. Raptor Center, agreed to become his sponsor.

Before Greg could begin his search for a juvenile red-tailed hawk, he had to build a mews, the enclosure in which his hawk would live. Even the size had to meet regulations set by the DNR. A weathering yard, which is the secure environment where the bird can spend time outdoors tethered to a post under the watchful eye of the falconer, also had to be in place ahead of time. In fact, pretty much everything you need to be a falconer and care for a bird must be in place before you can even think about going out and trapping a bird.

“Letting go of the first bird I’d trained was like taking my first child to college. It was heartbreaking and a bit traumatic," said Greg.

Some of the necessary equipment for the bird includes a leather anklet, jesses (leather strips), and a leather hood, just to name a few. The hood was critical during the first days of training. “When you first capture a bird, it will be terrified of you,” said Greg. “When you put the hood on, they can’t see anything. So, the bird immediately becomes calm.”

With all the requirements met and a DNR inspection of his facility, equipment, and provisions for the bird in place, Greg was finally ready to trap his first bird. The only type of bird an apprentice in the United States is permitted to capture, and train is a juvenile,” said Greg. “You can tell the age by the color of the tail feathers. In the first year, the tail feathers are brown. Then, they get their red adult feathers when they are a year old.”

For three or four weeks, Greg drove around in his truck with his trap while searching the limbs of trees and telephone poles. Finally, on September 30, 2016, he caught sight of a juvenile hawk. Slowing almost to a stop, he pulled off the road, tossed the trap out of the truck as close to the tree as he dared without startling the hawk, and eased away. The trap was a round dome with a wire mesh top covered in fishing line nooses with big loops. Inside of the trap, Greg had placed a live mouse. “When the bird tries to grab at the mouse with its claws, their toes get hung up in the loops of the fishing line,” he said.

Continuing on for one hundred feet or so, Greg eased off the road again and turned his truck around. As soon as he got his binoculars in place, the bird descended. With his talons clutching the trap, he was held fast. Greg covered the falcon with a beach towel until he could slip the hood over its head. This was Elijah.

Greg learned as much from that first experience as Elijah learned from him. However, when it came time to release him at the end of the season in mid-March, Greg wasn’t ready. Most falconers release their birds at this time and begin the process with a new bird when the season resumes in August/September. This was also the time when they molt. “It happens slowly. A few feathers fall out at a time until the bird has a full set of new feathers and their red tail,” said Greg.

The following year, he and Elijah returned to hunt the woods around his house. But when the second season ended, he knew it was time to let go. “Letting go of the first bird I’d trained was like taking my first child to college. It was heartbreaking and a bit traumatic. I’d kept him for two years. And when you care for something every day, even though you know it is a wild creature, you love it. But the next time, when you take the second child to college, you walk away and say, ‘See ya!’”

Until Mary.

The day I met Greg and his redtailed hawk Mary, the sun shone brightly, and a rather gusty wind stirred over the fields. The first day of spring was only weeks away. He led me down to the weathering yard where Mary sat tethered to her post. Her bearing was regal. To all appearances, she seemed content to bask in the morning sun.

Still, she was a bird. “She won’t try to fly away?” I asked.

Greg smiled. “Nope. We had a successful hunt yesterday. She’s well-fed.” It was not a guess. Greg could have told me her weight down to the very gram. Managing a bird’s weight and food intake was one of the keys to being a successful falconer. “I know from trial and error, Mary needs to be plus or minus 20 grams from 1,240 grams,” said Greg. “We measure by grams because it’s the smallest unit of measurement. If I take her out to hunt when she’s full, like today, she would just go out in the woods and find her a tree to sit in until I called to her. But if she’s too far below that weight, she’s not going to be properly nourished and won’t have the strength to hunt. It’s kind of like with us.” He smiled. “When it gets lunchtime, we’re ready for a meal. When Mary is hungry, she’ll want to hunt.”

The trust between the falconer and his bird comes from weeks and weeks of working together before ever going out on a hunt. And it was all about the hunt. All the work that went into training and the daily care for the bird all came down to the experience they shared in the woods.

“You said she was a red-tailed hawk, right?” I asked.

Perceiving the underlying question, he said, “Yes. But hunting with any diurnal bird of prey is called falconry.” In addition to falcons, falconry includes hunting with hawks, kestrels, eagles, and owls. “Falconers hunt with native birds to their area. I would guess that about 90% of the falconers in Georgia hunt with a redtailed hawk. Some hunt with kestrels. As for what falconers hunt with their birds, “About 80% of the falconers I know in Georgia hunt squirrels with their falcons, although I know a few do hunt rabbits.”

Greg set a “tidbit,” which is a small piece of meat, on his leather glove and called to Mary. He had positioned himself with her tether in mind. The falcon immediately responded to the sound of his voice. She stretched out her wings and flew to him. A line from William Butler Yeats poem “The Second Coming” came to mind. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” The balance of the world, according to Yeats, depended on one hearing the other’s voice.

As Mary settled onto Greg’s arm, her black eyes shifted to the stranger next to him, namely me. I felt like one of the seven sons of Sceva. “Jesus, I know, and I know about Paul. But who are you?” (ref. Acts 19:15) Quickly, she shifted her wild gaze back to Greg, and I breathed a sigh of relief. And then he said, “Here, you give it a try,” as he sat Mary back on her post and passed the glove to me. Now, I can’t tell you that I am making plans to build a mews anytime soon, but it was an experience I won’t soon forget.

As this past season drew to a close, Greg made the decision to keep Mary another year. She would stay with him through the summer months of molting. By fall, she would have her beautiful red tail feathers. And once again, Greg and Mary would hunt the woods in search of prey.

Even though she is the only hawk Greg has ever trained that has allowed him such physical contact, he said, “She doesn't love me. She doesn’t really even like me. But she trusts me.” No, Mary was not Greg’s pet. She would not follow him around the yard like one of his dogs. She is wild at heart, which is perhaps what makes the relationship between the falconer and his bird so special. Trust.

“Mary understands that I'm not going to hurt her,” said Greg. “She knows I will provide her with food and a safe environment, which are the two things these birds instinctively search for in the wild. And Mary also knows I’m a pretty good hunting companion, too.” He smiled.