I got involved in falconry 18 years ago when I found a Short Eared Owl that someone had shot in a field full of pheasants on a fateful Montana Fall morning. I made the decision to take the owl to a raptor rehab center where, one of the women rehabbing the birds was a falconer. She loaned me a book and sparked an interest in this ancient art that honestly, I didn't even know was practiced in a contemporary way.
Long story short... after having the honor to hunt with many birds over the years, I ended up forming a partnership with this tiercel.... a Gyr/Peregrine cross that I named Cirrus after the white, whispy, high level clouds. Our routine on a hunting day starts with me greeting him during the crisp, Autumn morning, getting him kitted out with his Jesses and transmitter (so I can track him in the tall grass if it's necessary) and then, off we go.... to where the mountains meet the grass farms of western Montana.
I weigh Cirrus daily. Some of the art is to recognize that his weight has to be maintained carefully to keep him in "strong" and healthy shape. If he's too light, it's not safe for him. Raptors can loose a lot of weight on a cold night because their metabolism can be quite high while trying to maintain good temperature regulation. If he's too heavy, and has no hunger, he'll have no desire to fly and will likely take off, only to find a pole or branch to sit in until the desire to hunt returns. This can be frustrating and take hours. When he's at the correct weight, he's strong, healthy and very keen;-)
The hood keeps him calm and relaxed during the drive to the field. He happily rides along on his block perch and knows that the process of wearing the hood and riding in the van means that soon, he'll be tearing up the sky, free to do what he does best. When the hood comes out, he chupps with excitement. It still makes me laugh;-)
Jay has been a falconer for more than 60 years and is one of my favorite hunting partners. Falconry for me is often a solitary affair but, on the days that I get to train and hunt with Jay, I learn and get to exchange ideas.... and get to watch his bird's flight along with my own bird's.
He is currently flying a female peregrine named, Ava. She was just a chick when we found her and her new life with Jay began. It's amazing to see the bond that's been formed and seeing it in person makes me grateful to have a similar bond with Cirrus.
Always a cool moment to carry Cirrus into the field, having no idea what's going to happen.
When he casts off the fist, he's completely on his own. I don't train my birds to "do what I want". They're not circus animals. I want him to be exactly what he is......a self-actualized predator. He's a bird and I want him to be a bird so, when he leaves the fist, he's free to do as he chooses. This, for me, makes the partnership one of equality and is unlike most other partnerships formed between people and animals.
If I've done my job correctly, he chooses to recognize our partnership as an advantage in his drive to hunt. I have to make sure I can consistently do my job and find him birds so he trusts me. Usually, my dog Cedar and/or I will find a pheasant or partridge and "flush" it when he's circling high over head. Instinctively, he dives out of the sky at staggering speeds to meet and make fatal contact with the other bird, knocking it to the ground with precision. When he stoops from really high above, it sounds like an egg, sizzling in a pan; like he's tearing a line through the atmosphere.
To watch him do what he was born to do.... this part of nature, the interaction between a predator and his will to live and the prey with the same instinct is awe inspiring. When I approach him on his kill, we thank the partridge as I "jess him up" and trade him off the kill onto his food (a quail that I have in my bag). The premise of falconry is for us to share the bounty so I put the partridge in my bag in a way that he knows I'm not "stealing" from him. At the end of the day, he'll eat most of the bird anyway, but this is the way falconry has been practiced for thousands of years and doing it this way keeps bad habits at bay. If it's done wrong, the falcon can end up resenting the falconer and becoming aggressive or at worst, choose to take off and hunt without the falconer as a partner.
Any day that I get to watch Cirrus fly, where he ends up back on the fist in good health....that's a good day of falconry......successful hunt or not. For me, this is yet another version of my KAVU day.
© 2026 KAVU
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