Red Tail Hawk

This was one of the first of several red tail hawks I flew. A passage tiercel or first year male he was trapped during his first migration. I trained and then hunted him for one season before releasing him back to the wild, after the worst of the winter was over.

This hawk “manned down” or tamed quickly. He readily accepted food and handling from me. Once he learned to accept my gloved hand for a perch, he quickly progressed through his indoor training. He learned to first step up onto, then jump to, and finally to fly across a room to land on my gloved hand. Next we moved outside. With him on a creance or long line I would place him on a fence post or low branch and walk away before calling. He would fly and land on my offered, gloved hand for a tidbit. Lessons learned, we were off to the hunt.

While he was a quick learner, I flew other hawks that were better hunters. Whether his fault or mine he was a poor hunter. Well, that’s not entirely true, he was a good mouser, but I wanted to hunt rabbits. We had a lot of fun together and, while he did manage to catch a few rabbits with me, I never did learn a good recipe for the mice he insisted on flying.

Not a brag, but an observation, I flew several wild trapped hawks loose, free of any restraint, in the woods  and had them return to hand on cue only two weeks after trapping them. I was continually amazed at how fast some of the red tails would tame down.