Urban Safari: Falconry Lessons
A bird in hand...is AWESOME!!!
As the COVID vaccine has made it safer to travel, RainyDayMagazine has been venturing further afield from the Boston office. Our latest trip was up to the New Hampshire School of Falconry for a 9AM, three-hour class on falconry.
Yes, we said falconry.
And it was completely and totally awesome!!!
New Hampshire School of Falconry
The drive up to NHSF took about about two hours, and we arrived around 8:45AM.
The school is in Deering, and was easy to find. It was as bucolic as you might imagine, being “up there” in New Hampshire.
No, not enormous bee hives, mews. For the birds of prey. They should call this Bird-of-Prey Street.
New England’s oldest and largest falconry school was started by master falconer Nancy Cowan in 2005. The school is based at Nancy and Jim’s home, a beautiful Federal-era estate built in 1789, in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.
The birds that interact with students are the three Harris’s hawks Ember, Spike and Scooter, and the Peregrine falcon Banshee.
Aware of everything.
Nancy’s, uh, classroom talk (i.e., sitting in a circle on very comfortable chairs on the side lawn) on:
- the history of falconry,
- the qualities of the bird of prey, and
- falconry’s influence on our culture and language;
was given under the watchful eye of Peregrine falcon Banshee. A lot of fascinating information was imparted, a good bit of it was absorbed, and whatever was missed will hopefully be in Nancy’s book, Peregrine Spring!
Eyes that can see so much more than ours can.
Handling
The two-hour, hands-on part of the class included learning how to handle a trained bird, i.e.:
- understanding how birds-of-prey think,
- knowing how to interact with bird-of-prey, and
- specific things to do/not do so that they don’t take a chunk out of you unintentionally.
Wan, aka The Bird Whisperer.
Trained birds respond to both instinctual and learned cues. As long as we present what the bird expects, it will behave in an expected way. After being shown how to “handle the falcon,” we were given individual opportunities to put what we learned into practice, backed up by a master falconer, as needed.
“No-no-no-no-no-no-no!”
Banshee objected at first, but settled down once it felt more comfortable being (properly) held securely “under the thumb.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The heavy leather glove protected the hand from the talons. Banshee, at two pounds, was barely noticeable on the arm. With the gloved hand positioned just so, the bird felt sufficiently “safe” and stopped fussing.
It was an immense thrill to have that beautiful creature barely a foot distance away.
Taking the measure of each other.
Flying
After learning the basics of the proper way to securely hold the Peregrine falcon, the class ended with three hands-on flights for each student with another bird, this time a Harris’s hawk.
Wary, but excited.
The hawk was brought out and released. It perched itself on a nearby tree, all the while seeing everything happening around it.
“I’m just gonna perch here until somebody offers me a chicken foot.”
Flying fast, then hiding in plain sight.
One by one, the students presented the hawk with food held “just so.” The hawk, seeing an opportunity to eat without having to go look for it, swooped down, took what was offered, and then either sat on the gloved hand and ate it, or took it and retreated to a more secure place and ate it.
Quite the experience and kind of a difficult-to-describe thrill!!! (Turn on the sound to hear the hawk’s bells as he flies.)
For those looking to read more about life with these beautiful creatures, we cannot recommend highly enough these two books:
Amazing beings, written about by ardent admirers.
In fact, one of us started Peregrine Spring around 2 in the afternoon, read for seven hours straight, didn’t notice he ended up missing dinner. Oh well… 😉
Since we were up there for the weekend…
Sunapee, NH
The falconry lesson was fairly close to Sunapee. We spent some time driving through the area and enjoying the views (valley, lake, etc).
Not a painting; an actual place.
We took the Aerial Sky Ride (aka the ski lift in the Summer) to the top of Mount Sunapee. Once there, we took a short hike to a terrific spot that had a panoramic view of the lake, took some selfies, and ate lunch. An excellent way to wrap up the day!
The only thing missing was Julie Andrews singing “The Sound of Music”
Random shot of a covered bridge, because…New Hampshire.
As the area is a ski destination, there were many hospitality options. We stayed at a place that was a quick drive to the falconry school. The room was clean, the shower was hot, and we could watch the sun set over the mountains; perfect for this trip.
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