I have been telling you of Jessie's rather unusual behavior for some time. However most of you do not have the experience to fully grasp the unusual aspect of her actions or better yet, her responses.
While falconry is very old, predating rifles as a means of obtaining food, and the knowledge such as it was, consisted of studies by other cultures. Here in the US, not very much was known about it until the 70's. I had no one to enlighten me on what worked or didn't work. There was not much that I was able to glean from books that were more like related successful tales by English Falconers. They say rather accurately that "experience comes from bad decisions", and I would have to agree. Consider that each " oh shit" generally took a year to come to fruition, because it took that long to find out if you had a "hunting Hawk" or just a pet. Each year I learned a little more and planned the next years endeavor with the hope that I could end up with a better hunting Hawk.
The other problem was the limited availability of raptors to practice on. In England and in Holland there were falconers that made a living by trapping "hunting Falcons" on Passage, and sold them. Little to nothing was known about eyass raptors, and they had little value. The birds available here was mostly limited to species that were better suited to vermin control rather than hunting Grouse on the Moors. It took me four years to actually touch a raptor, and then it was a Kestrel taken from a nest illegally by a guy in California.
There are three stages of a raptors life. Eyass- from hatching to hunting on its own. Passage- a raptor in its first year on migration, Haggard- fully grown mature bird that has survived its first year and migration.
Of the three the only one that anything was known about or used was the passage. All of the books published about falconry concerned the training of either the Passage Peregrine falcon, or the Sparrow Hawk. Both birds inhabiting the English Isles and European countries. While all that was wonderful - if you lived there, it wasn't much good to a kid living in W.Va. or any where in America.
Now the point of all this rambling is that the age when a raptor comes into a falconers hands determines the mental state or mind set, if you will. It can change or react differently by even a day's difference. A passage already knows how to hunt, and what works for it. All you have to do is to "man" or accustom the bird to your presence, teach it to come to a lure or your fist, and then go kill something. The problem with all that is the Passage birds of my dreams lived in Alaska, Canada and other places that I had no access to.
The only problem was that we here in the US had no access to the one bird that readily adapts itself to falconry, the Peregrine. That was because we had poisoned the population of Peregrines with DDT. The species was dying out due to the fact that the egg shells were too thin to bear the falcons weight as she was brooding. The turn around and discovery took place in the 60's and 70's.
During this time an urgent drive began to discover how to breed falcons in captivity. I won't bore you with all of this, suffice it to say that I joined with George Peden to establish a breeding facilities to raise some of the finer falcons for falconry. We were forced to resort to artificial insemination to have any success. It was all very expensive and I for one had to do it on a shoestring budget.
Almost all of the birds produced at my part of the facilities went for release to bolster the populations in the wild. We also produced some hybrids between Prairie Falcons and Peregrines and a few Gyrfalcon and Peregrines. Since it was all through artificial means, what we ended up with was baby falcons that had to be hand raised. Now, nobody can beat mother nature, the best that you can hope for is a fair imitation of a normal raptor. Not as easy as it sounds.
What we mostly ended up with at first was an imprinted spoiled brat that had the possibility of being a dangerous idiotic psychotic raptor. Did I mention that if not real careful, they think you are a parent whose duties are to feed it when ever it is hungry. Screaming loudly and constantly is the way that they signal their needs.
I soon learned that each species had a different age,measured in days, that they did not imprint. They still were as dumb as posts about how to fly or hunt. One other aspect that was interesting is that most of them still thought that they should migrate along with the real hawks. Since they were basically tame and used to people the indicators that it was about to happen was not very apparent.
With Peregrines I felt that the proper age to take one from its parents was exactly 28 days. I also learned that not all raptors were created equally. Just like people, some were psycho's, some were nervous, so much so to be worthless or at least a less desirable prospect. The one to take is the one that calms down first when you present yourself in close the first time. That one will be your best option.
That is the way that I picked Jessie. She knew that she was a falcon, but was young enough to bond to me. A trapped passage will always have respect, and be reserved in relation to the falconer. Jessie doesn't feel that way. She interacts with me as if I was her mate. Therefore I cannot be trusted with food, and will always be scheming to take it away from her. She has worn a hood prior to flying for 12 years. She still will do her best to make it as hard for me every single day as she can. She will allow me to place it on her head, then try to pull her head out at the last second. It sometimes takes four or five times before she will allow me to pull the braces. She thinks of me as her mate. She laid 10 eggs this year, and was as sweet to me as I have ever seen her, at least as long as she was laying. She is as close to a Disney presentation of a raptor with human tendencies as exists today.
She got loose our first year here and returned on her own after three days. She had a full crop, but wanted me to pick her up. Other than that she has not spent a night on her own outside. She is the finest hunting hawk that I have ever had, but she screws with me all the time. Its worth it!
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