Simon Thomsett

Category: Falcons | Date: Nov 14 2007 | By: admin

14th Nov 2007.

Yesterday I flew Tim down by the dam. It is one of the best ways to get respite from life’s more stressful or boring moments. Tim is a male Lanner Falcon. He fell from Times Tower in the middle of Nairobi city in early July this year. Fortunately someone in a queue waiting for a licence saw him being beaten up outside and he rushed out to save his life. He then took it to the Ornithology Department National Museums of Kenya, who then phoned up my colleague Munir Virani, who then phoned me. This is how I usually get my birds.

Unfortunately Tim was thrust into a small wire cage at the museum for about an hour. It is a matter that makes me purple but is all too commonly done at vet’s, wildlife institutions and so-called ‘rehabilitators’. It may have killed more raptors taken into captivity than any other practise. The standard response; “Oh, we didn’t know what to do with it”, is a little less upsetting than “Hum, well we take a very dim view indeed of making it tame and sticking jesses on it and much prefer throwing it in a cage so that it can batter itself to an early death“. (The italics part isn’t said……but it is the invariable end result).

The soft part of the nose called the cere and it is like sealing wax. It can be sliced open in one hard hit against a chicken wire cage. If so the quick, the area from which the beak grows can be permanently damaged. Months later the bill can grow out skew and make the bird incapable of eating. The tail is the next to go. Slammed up against a cage the tail is thrust through the mesh and snaps. It takes over one whole year for one flight feather to grow, fall out and be replaced. Two broken flight feathers is just about tolerable for bumbling raptors like kites, but not for falcons and goshawks. Three is too much. It is not usual to get hawks from vet’s with all primaries and all tail feathers snapped (That’s 32 feathers requiring some 2 years worth of captivity for them to grow through properly).

Picture of Tim looking cute . He turns his head upside down as a comic gesture, and if you turn yours he’ll try to out-do you all the more. Note the damage on the top of his cere.(Photo by Laila Bahaa-el-din)</p>

Poor Tim had broken 4 tail feathers and had another 2 pulled out. His cere was damaged, but fortunately not very badly. He had also lost one claw in the cage, but that has grown back. He would have died had he been reared in a cage and released. No question. Unfortunately this is the form of “management” favoured all over East Africa, and is not unknown elsewhere.

Lanner Falcons are one of my favourite raptors, being very intelligent, docile on their perches, and dynamite in the sky. They stoop finer than almost all falcons. The vertical dive straight down from many hundreds of meters is a miracle of the natural world. Peregrines, Sakers, Barbaries are unreal too, but they seldom have the affection of the Lanner, or their consistent and reliable performance. Peregrines and Barbaries are faster but they are arrogant in their mastery and tend to zoom off over the horizon if bored for one minute. Lanners come back. My old Lanner died recently aged about 17. She always had a lung infection and she never did fly that well. She knew she’d never make it in the wild. She’d abandon me regularly for days but walk in through the back door and sit on her perch behind my TV as though nothing had happened. It was a great relationship. Tim is half her size. He is a midget compared to the eagles. But he is mischievous and flashy.

Tim learning to fly on a creance with Laila.

Training raptors is common sense. They come to you for food initially of course but within days they come to you simply because you offer a nice perch and security. In about 4 days most falcons look forward to seeing you and many of these were completely “wild” prior to that. For example, I had one “wild” Martial Eagle, hit of the road eat from my hand 6 hours after being brought in. I never “trained” him, he just got better over the next few weeks and flew to me because he never thought it bad to do otherwise. He hated strangers though, and that was fine, because when he took his leave he was once again “wild”. He was fully trained and hunting in 2 weeks without once ever “tying him up”.

Tim never did need training either. He just flew to you cos he is a pig and likes to eat. Each day he’d eat to repletion. There was no question of not giving him a full belly. But first you have to fly him on a long line (called a creance), before progressing to flying free, which he did in a few weeks. I had great satisfaction in teaching Laila and Gai Cullen the rudiments of training Tim. Two people of differing backgrounds both learning so much about raptors that now each is fervent supporter of their conservation. It is a “no brainer” to understand how this connection can easily be made. The picture below shows Gai flying Tim to the lure. The lure in this case is a (long dead) day old chick on the end of a cord. It is swung around at high speed and Tim comes in as fast as he can to catch it in mid air. He may be hard flying for 10-15 minutes. That this exercise is a thousand times more than that which can be achieved in a cage..no matter what size is immaterial to his hunting ability. At his early stage in his training he is still a buffoon incapable of catching anything as much as he tries. Later his lure got bigger and had old dried wings of francolins attached to it. He knew is was a francolin, but it got hammered nevertheless.

Tim about to catch the lure. (Photo by Laila Bahaa-el-din)

Tim has failed miserably to catch anything substantial since he was brought in. He at first thought he could kill anything. He would fly off to bomb Egyptian Geese at the dam, then after a good smacking he gave up of those (10 times his weight!). He changed his mind and try to take herons, and Ibis, again about 10 times bigger prey than normal! After a while he figured this was tough to do. I have seldom had a falcon longer than a few weeks who did not start hunting much sooner. But I realise the problem is that all my dogs have died. I have used pointers for 20 years and I never really knew until now how useful they were. They find not only game birds like francolin, but also larks, pipits on the ground, and starlings, sparrows and doves in the bushes. Instead of having all day as would a wild falcon to find food, I have 30 minutes each afternoon so find them quickly. Gai has pointers. Pointers were first bred for falcons and not for guns, and it took only a few hours for Tim to realise that Hazel (the pointer) was a good thing to follow around. We have had good flights over Hazel, but not one kill because they are not together often enough. But Tim did get one dove fair and square on his own, and he has taken some small bats near nightfall and a lot of bumble bees. His old problem returns however. The broken tail feathers although imped (fixed with old feathers of another falcon with a metal pin in the hollow shaft) keep breaking. It may be that this is why he just hasn’t been able to get going properly.

One of the fine things about messing around with hawks is learning about their daft sense of humour. I have had generations of falcons swoop down out of the sky in great style to seize dried cow pats. Once caught the cow pat is carried around like a trophy. It is tossed in the air, caught and often brutally strangled. Sometimes they fly up with one to a great height and drop it, only to kill it again half way down. Their sense of play is highly developed. few would dispute a kitten or puppy capable of such pranks. But a noble falcon or eagle seems to be exempt from playing. But in understanding that they do it makes one realise just how advanced an animal they really are. Below is a picture of Tim on his first and unsuccessful stoop on a cow pat. You may be able to see that he missed it and smacked his face into the dirt!

Tim’s first attempt, note cow pats, and how they avoided being taken.

Tim’s second attempt. He returns on foot.

Tim’s third attempt. Success! Poor cow pat.

Tim is fast becoming an expert in the sky. Once he starts to catch real living food he will soon start to think of wandering away for good. Yesterday was a bad day for me. People problems and a day in the centre of Nairobi, followed by a gruelling back-breaking drive home. As soon as I stepped out the car I walked over to Tim and asked him to step onto my glove.

As I drove past the zebra and eland herds with Tim on my left hand on my way to the dam my brooding melancholy started to lift. Getting there, just before sun set, which is usually too late, the sun broke through the clouds as I released Tim. Off he flew with great abandon. Over herons and geese long since used to his silly ways. He very narrowly missed a few doves and tried as hard as he could to catch a Greenshank. As it got nearly dark tiny bats with white bellies emerged and flew over the choppy waves of the dam. Tim did all he could again. Nearing exhaustion he decided to come to my calls. He alighted on the ground behind me and allowed me to pick him up and feed him. We drove home happy.