Untitled Document

Urban Hawking! - “A Different Approach”

Urban Hawking! Two simple words, but how do we determine exactly what they mean in relationship to our beloved sport.

The Oxford English Dictionary portrays Urban ... as living in or situated within a town or city. Therefore with the simplest of deductions does this mean flying or hawking with in this chosen environment? The obvious answer would of course be yes.

However can this type of hawking be really controlled in such a hostile surroundings like city centres? Well why not. Our towns and cities have more wild hawks and falcons urbanizing than ever before. Surely it wouldn't take that much effort to mirror the success of our popular wild cousins.

In November 2003 I was approached by a Pest Control company to fly my various hawks within a busy city centre environment. Here now, was my chance to find out.

After all the preliminary phone calls and signing of the dreaded paperwork I finally got to work in early April of the following year, 2004. My initial idea was to fly just my team of Harris', a male bird called “Merlin” and a female called “Saffron”. However, it took that long to set the contract up, nearly six months in total, that I had actually given up hope of ever flying the birds at all.

By this time I had already placed my male bird into a breeding program for the foreseeable future so only had the female left to do all the work. I quickly realized that no matter how fit the bird could be, she wouldn't be able to cover all the work on her own.

I decided to utilize both my remaining birds, a four year old female Lanner falcon called “Emma” and a three year old male Sakerette called “Sultan”. As I'd had both these birds from youngsters, and had flown them for other pest control work as well as the odd displays every now and again, I felt extremely confident that the birds wouldn't let me down in normal flying conditions. However, flying within the tight confines of a city centre would undoubtedly be a challenge, both for the bird as well as falconer.

As the first day approached, I had decided to err on the side of caution and go particularly early. This would hopefully have two benefits, firstly there shouldn't be too many people hanging around at that time, and secondly it would give the bird's time to get used to their different surroundings.

The area chosen for my pest control activities was a rather attractive pedestrianized walkway known to locals as the Flag Square . This square was host to a number of impressive grade 1 and grade 2 listed buildings. These included the Town Hall, a magnificent museum, the town's main crown courts, and numerous others all connected with the judiciary.

Smack bang in the centre of all this was the monument I was sent to protect. The towns very own Memorial Cenotaph. Recently refurbished and looking superb, I had the task of keeping it that way.

“Saffron” the female Harris was chosen to go first. Casting her off into one of the three to four trees that grew within the square, she patrolled the area methodically and soon had the pigeons on the move. So far so good.

Next up was the falcon. I had chosen “Emma” over “Sultan” as I knew this hawk was a lot tighter to both myself and the lure, than the Saker would be. The choice was a good one. After having a good look round whilst sat on my fist, she took to the air. Initially she ranged out a touch, however being the tight bird that she was, she soon came back over the top of me where I was able to control her to some degree with the lure.

The problems presented with inner city pest control jobs is that there are plenty of buildings with which the birds can rest upon. This is okay for the Harris hawks; however can poise a problem should the falcon decide to sit. It was with this factor in mind that I decided to keep the falcon flying in and out of the buildings, trying as I went to discourage her from landing. By flying the falcon for maybe 5-6 times within the visit time, and for only a few minutes at a time, I was able to achieve a level of success with this procedure.

The first couple of weeks passed by without much of a problem. As the contract moved on into the third, fourth, and fifth weeks the pigeon levels had decreased by around 50%. Although I was only contracted for so many hours within the working week, I decided to keep the pigeons on there toes, and therefore changed my visiting times and days on a regular basis. It would be about the eighth or ninth week when the incident, that I am about to share with you, happened.

I had arrived at the square at approximately 10.00 that morning and had already deployed “Saffron” to clear any pigeons that may have been hanging around. To the uninitiated, pest control contracts are not about going into a situation with hawk or falcon and attempting to decimate the population of every other bird within the area. It is about focusing on the problem at hand and dealing with that problem in a controlled and responsible way.

By starting off with hawks like the Harris' the pigeons see the hawks as an intimidatory presence and usually disappear fairly quickly. Any hardened birds that are left are then moved on or harassed by the faster and more determined falcons.

I had decided that the breeding program I had placed “Merlin” into wasn't working as well as it should have done, and therefore pulled him out to help with this particular job. “Merlin” was next up and almost repeated the same circuit “Saffron” had done some ten minutes before. There was not a pigeon to be seen, so I walked back to my vehicle and waited. I knew from experience that it wouldn't be long before the pigeons would be back.

Sure enough within twenty minutes or so the first one or two had started to roost on the roof tops adjacent to the memorial itself. Time for “Emma”. Within 30 seconds I had the falcon ready on the fist. I unhooded her and allowed her to rouse. A routine I have found certain falcons will go through whatever the occasion, before taking to the air. Shortly after, she was on the wing. She gained good height above the roof tops almost immediately, the half dozen or so pigeons that had returned soon realized their mistake and scarpered to the safety of the back streets before disaster struck.

I left the falcon ranging about just to deter any other pigeons that may not have seen her take to the air initially. After the fourth or fifth week of flying my birds within such a tight environment, I had become pretty confident about how each of the falcons would work and also how they would use one or two of the buildings to gain lift and height.

“Emma” in particular would use the Town Hall itself as her first choice, only utilizing the museum as her second should she need it. Both these buildings were over 120 feet tall and with them being so close together within the square itself, created an artificial vortex of air that the falcons could use to their advantage.

From a falconers' point of view, to witness a falcon waiting on above its intended quarry on a moorland is one thing, to see a falcon wait on over a busy pedestrianized high street is quite another. However, I can assure you it did happen, and the next 30 seconds were to be some of the most memorable I had witnessed with a falcon of my own.

The Flag Square as described above was simply a ornate area of the open air shopping mall with two roads intersecting at the bottom left hand corner, the one to the right was the old high street, whereas the one to the left was a newly constructed road which ran down to join the orbital road at the bottom.

Keeping my eyes fixed tightly on the sky I saw “Emma” come over the top of the high street at about 80 feet. Flying gently into the wind, she held herself really well, looking to either side of her ever so slightly correcting her direction and pitch. Rousing in the air as she often did, a pigeon came from underneath the eaves of the building to my left as I looked at her.

Twisting over her left shoulder she fell into a vertical dive. Wings held tightly against her side she took on the shape of a dart head, and fell rapidly hitting the unfortunate pigeon in mid air. As the pigeon fell to the floor the falcon followed up very rapidly and bound to it again this time in the middle of the road.

Although this road wasn't used very much, except for the occasional delivery driver, I moved into the hawk very quickly just in case. The pigeon had been dispatched very expertly by the hawk, who then decided that the best place to enjoy her prize was the opening of a very busy newsagents shop doorway.

Before I knew what was happening the door had been swung open and the hawk had seen its chance and dragged the pigeon even further into the shop. How I was going to explain this, I had no idea. With a great relief to me the shopkeeper was more interested in what had happened and how beautiful the falcon was. I apologized to him profusely for disturbing him and his customers and made a hasty retreat to my vehicle.

Although the rest of the contract provided plenty of exciting chases both with the Harris hawks as well as the falcons, none of them matched up to “Emma's” daring raid over a busy high street in broad daylight.

Urban Hawking at its very best!

Paul Melton

(Falconer)