Farewell and Fair Winds, Ruby

I released my hunting partner, Ruby, this weekend. 

I took Ruby, the red-tailed hawk, to a lovely, heavily wooded area some distance from where we live. The trees were blossoming with new, budding leaves and a warm breeze was in the air, heralding the arrival of spring. Ruby waited patiently while I removed her equipment (the leather anklets, bells, and federal ID band on her legs) as she sat on my gloved hand. I lifted my fist to the sky and she paused, waiting. She licked her beak a few times, something she does if she’s anticipating I might give her a tidbit of food. Seeing that no food was forthcoming, she turned her head to the woods and took off without a backward glance. I watched her soar up, land in a tall oak tree, and raise her feathers in a contented rouse. After a few minutes she took off again, her strong wingbeats carrying her up and away, sparking in me the bittersweet pang of loss mixed with the happiness I had for her regaining her freedom. I sent her off with a prayer for fair winds, an abundance of easy meals, and a hope for the opportunity for her to raise her own family and contribute more beautiful red-tails to this world. Good luck Ruby, thank you for your time and letting me be part of your life for the slice of it we shared together! 

A lot of people seem surprised that falconers regularly release their birds back to the wild. In falconry, we often only borrow birds from the wild for a short time. In the case of my work with red-tails, that has always been true. 

Many falconers in the U.S. trap young, wild birds to train and hunt with. As a knee-jerk reaction, that may sound terrible, but if you learn more about why I think you will see why it makes a lot of sense for both falconer and bird. I’ll use red-tailed hawks as an example here, but it’s similar for many species.  Young raptors have very high mortality rates, often 70-80% don’t make it through their first year. It’s very hard to learn to be a successful hawk; they are hatched, raised, learn to fly, and are booted from their nests/families in a matter of months, then have to make it through their first winter alone. Hawks have a very fast metabolism and need to be in peak condition to hunt successfully. Missing a few meals or a few days’ hunts slows them down and can quickly become a death sentence. They must navigate bad weather, avoid predation, run-ins with cars, electrical lines, and humans. Most red-tailed hawks migrate south for the winter, sometimes very long distances, the arduous journey also not without risk.

When falconers trap hawks, it is always these young first-year birds. It’s easy to tell a juvenile from an adult; they have different coloration. The young hawks have light colored eyes and lack the distinctive bright red tail, they don’t get that til their second year. The young birds are much easier to trap, too. Adults are usually too wary and are rarely caught. The young birds are often hungry, somewhat desperate, and willing to take more risks. Taking a young bird means you aren’t removing a breeding adult from the population; you are taking a bird who likely wouldn’t make it to adulthood.

(A first year red-tail - notice the brown, banded tail and very light eyes)

(Ruby as an adult, with the iconic rusty red tail and eyes starting to darken)

There are other practical benefits to capturing a juvenile hawk; young birds settle into a captive life surprisingly rapidly, something that the adults rarely do. Often within just a day or two of trapping the bird is willing to take food from your hand and sit calmly on a glove. 

Training happens rapidly,and within two to three weeks of concentrated effort you can be free-flying, out hunting together with a hawk who was so recently completely wild. It’s quite magical! The training itself is mostly about showing the bird that you’re worth teaming up with. A falconry bird flies free when out hunting and can choose to fly away and not return. Sometimes (hopefully very rarely), they do. Successful training means they recognize that you’re worth keeping around – you provide meals whether their hunt worked out or not. You do the hard work of flushing game, pounding through thickets looking for rabbits or squirrels, they just follow along with you and watch you work. It’s a good trade-off, and most young hawks choose to stick around, coming back when you call them. It’s a delight, every time, to raise your glove and have a wild hawk alight on your fist, of their own free choice.

(A harris's hawk returning to my friend's glove when out on a hunt)

I think that a lot of people romanticize ‘the wild’. For sure, wild animals should be wild, and I spend a lot of my time and work helping injured wildlife return to their natural lives. However, captivity is not inherently evil – there are benefits and drawbacks to each. In the wild, and animal isn’t necessarily ‘free’ – they are ruled by their stomachs, by availability of territory, food, mates, their own fitness, and quite a bit of luck. Many wild animals live very short, hard lives. In captivity they can get the best food, health care, protection from the elements, and if properly cared for they can live stimulating, enriched lives. I feel like the tentative bonds between falconer and hawk can show a lot of this in action. A falconry hawk trades some of its freedoms for guaranteed meals and much more overall safety, in the care of humans. It is not a perfect system, and for sure we, as falconers, have a heavy hand in the process. But in the end our birds can fly off, and usually they don’t. They choose to come back and continue the relationship with us, sometimes for their entire lifetimes. In the case of wild-trapped birds, it is not because they were imprinted upon humans, but because we work on building a relationship with them and it continues to involve the active choices of both parties. 

Some falconers do keep their wild-trapped birds. Many let them go after a year or two and start the process again with a new, young bird. The decision is a very personal one, often based on how well the bird settles into its life with humans and how well the hunting partnership goes. Some hawks show that they are perfectly content as falconry birds and can live with their humans for 20 years or more, their natural lifespans. I like to let my birds tell me if it’s time to go. Oftentimes, as they mature they will start spending more time scouting a territory, interacting with local residents, and not paying as much attention to hunting. In the case of Ruby, she was trapped and trained by a friend in Kansas a few years ago and transferred to me to fly for the last few seasons. This spring she started playing with sticks to make a sort of nest, and was getting into territorial screaming matches with local birds. Her head wasn’t in the game when we were out together, it was clear to me she’d like to establish some turf of her own and raise a family. So, I made the decision to let her go.

People often ask if the birds come back to you after you let them go, if they remain friendly with humans after their time as falconry birds. Definitely not! After just a week of not handling them daily they start to become wild, and after two weeks they won’t come to you anymore and will flee from you. Before I release a bird I feed them up so they are full and fit and don’t interact other than tossing them their food. So quickly, the bond and contract are broken, and when you let them go, they don’t look back. The relationship we build in terms of affection and love for our hawks is one-sided; they don’t bond with us like we do with them. They are independent birds and perfectly fine living without us. As soon as you take away the food benefit, they go back to taking care of themselves.

One of the other major upsides to this system is that it allows falconers work with birds without committing to keeping it for the bird’s entire life span. A hawk can live 20 years or more in captivity and requires special licensing, facilities, and experienced care. When birds are bred and raised in captivity, imprinted upon humans, they can never be released. If you were to purchase a young hawk as a new falconer and realize that the sport wasn’t for you, that you didn’t have the time or interest or had some life changes that made it impossible, where would your bird go? There aren’t a lot of licensed falconers or organizations who have capacity or interest in adding new birds, and they live a long time. With a wild bird, if it’s not working out, you can let them go to resume their wild lives with no harm done. Raising a captive raptor is also a difficult job which requires certain experience and skill – there are a lot of problems that can arise in the process which can lead to aggression, behavioral issues, or birds not learning to properly hunt game. It is something which is best left to more experienced falconers, who have had more time to commit to the sport and understand their own capabilities and interest in rearranging their lives to suit living with raptors. In many countries it is illegal to trap wild raptors for falconry, they can only purchase them from breeders, and with that comes all the problems I’ve described. There are certainly benefits and drawbacks to each way of doing things, but I’m very glad that the U.S. that we have the system that we do. 

For now, I will miss Ruby but I am happy, and thankful for her. I look forward to the space it opens in my life for a new hunting partner and brand new experiences, when the time comes.