I've been chipping away slowly at my parents on a particular subject. That subject is me working with something other than a kestrel while I live under their roof. Anyone reading this whom doesn't have much of a connection to falconry needs to know that I stick out like a sore thumb in the falconry community. If you were to walk into an Idaho Falconer's Association meeting, you would see a bunch of 40+ year old men, three women falconers, and me: a fifteen-year-old girl. Yup, I am a peculiar child. Anyway, my sponsor- at twenty-two she is the next most peculiar person in the IFA - set the terms of my apprenticeship as me working with american kestrels both years of my apprenticeship. I completely agree with her that this is the best way to complete my apprenticeship and become acquainted with falconry. So this fall I will be trapping another kestrel. I'm not sure if I want a male or female, but I am going to be a bit pickier when we are trapping this one. I want a more experienced bird; specifically, I want it to just nail the trap. I don't want to wait for it to find the trap, look from a distance, look a little closer, hover over it a bit, peer inside, wander around it a little, get scared away by a passing car, then have the process repeat a few hundred times before it's actually on the trap and stuck. I want a kestrel that just wants to destroy the sparrow inside the trap. Whether it's male or female, I don't care. It's name will be Fenoglio, from the
Inkheart trilogy by Cornelia Funke. To get a bird like this, I will likely have to wait until November to trap. But I'm going crazy without a bird and I may not make it that long.
But back to the story about chipping away at my parents. After the kestrel this season, I want to get a family group Cooper's Hawk. The thing about getting a Cooper's hawk is they are basically one of the hardest birds to maintain in captivity for falconry. They are high-strung and hard-wired to kill things, because they are an accipiter. They are also a lot bigger than kestrels, therefore by falconry facilities need to be completely replaced to accomodate this bird. And a Cooper's hawk would need a lot more of my time. All-in-all this is a big step, a step that my parents think should wait until I am out of the house. But I am chipping away at them ever so slowly, and I think they may just be worn down by the time next July rolls around and I am looking to trap a Cooper's hawk. Everybody cross your fingers...
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| Photo Cred: Walter Kitundu |
