Simon Thomsett

Category: Rehabilitation | Date: Jan 27 2008 | By: admin

I could not think what to name this “blog” entry. It summaries the difficulty in being in the field without the usual amenities of a town. Running a rehab centre needs seclusion, but in trying to keep up with the information highway, the run-away field of expertise of my more research orientated colleagues I feel left out. The two cannot be combined although the gap is getting shorter thanks to new “wireless” internet connections such as the set-up I am using right now. Nevertheless a recent experience and a phone call made me write this…which has nothing to do with raptors, but everything to do with the problems of trying to be effective.

I often have poor cell phone coverage here, but if I push the back of the phone against the metal structure of my outside water-tank the signal strength increases and I can email. I was standing there doing my email on my tiny cell-phone keyboard when the phone rang It was nearly ten o’clock at night and the full moon was out. It was my sister phoning from England. She asked what I was doing. I told her and she laughed and said I should add this in my blog. Hyena howled very close by and I told her to shut up and listen. I held the microphone piece toward the hyena. That sound managed to bounce across the planet to her ear. She faintly heard it, midwinter in a cold grey flat, a small piece of Africa got through. She felt home-sick.

I have hyena around my house every night, howling, gurgling and whooping it up. They devoured a full grown wildebeest about a week ago during a rainy night about 60 metres away from the bedroom window. When it rains the hyena pack together and go for large stuff that find it difficult to run in mud. I curse at them, sometimes I charge out of the house in my kikoi and shout. My old dogs used to go mad and roar off barking insanely, which annoyed me even more. But that particular night it was wet and I crammed the pillow over my head and hummed for 20 minutes till the pitiful bellowing of the wildebeest had subsided. After my sister phoned off I stood under the dripping tower trying to retrieve my interrupted email and I was aware of just how very lucky I am.

I built this house in 1992, after I joined the Peregrine Fund. I asked Dr David Hopcraft if I could set up a modest “Raptor Holding Facility” at the far corner of his game ranch on the vast Athi Kapiti plains. He kindly agreed and ever since I have slowly added huge eagle sheds and allowed the ranch’s small tourist concern to visit the collection whenever they wished. The main bulk of the house and the sheds had to go up quickly and for the cost of $3,500. That wasn’t much back then either, but that was all we had. The collection of eagles and hawks numbered about 20 in those days. It is always necessary for me that I live away from other people so that I can fly large eagles without the danger of them getting used to living around people, or killing cats and dogs or even attacking small children. An eagle can leave the fist, fly out a few kilometres in less than a minute and get into trouble very quickly. In addition I needed a place that I could release raptors into the wild. And it goes without saying that this necessitates a fair amount of seclusion. But I am also fond of being alone and in the bush surrounded by wildlife. It isn’t that it goes with the territory so much as I like it.

So I settled in a fairly bleak spot devoid of anything other than one small Acacia seyal tree. All it had going for it was an old water pipe from a windmill up the hill. It was 12km from the nearest ranch dwelling. That suited me fine. It was an interesting spot as it had Portland Cement property of 15,000 acres to the west and Machakos Ranching 15,000acres to its south. These ranches have rocky river-beds and temporary streams shrouded in thick riparian forests, deep water cut valleys and swamps and plains. It is by far the most “bio-diverse” location in the region. It is also hardly visited. I grew to think of this place as my own, for I was certainly the person who most often visited it.

Unfortunately if you are supposed to run a conservation project you have to be “connected”. When I started this work I had not heard of email and had never possessed a phone. Land lines were out of the question. Both electricity and phone lines are hideous and lethal to hawks and eagles. I got a cell-phone in 1997 but soon had the satisfaction of hurling it at the back of my car one night after some inflamed argument with a girlfriend and saw it fly into tiny bright pieces. I had relied on my Post Box near the old railway station at Athi River, but no-one other than my bank writes to me any more…it is all email. Then came cell-phones with email connections. I bought one at vast price 2 years ago. But as you can imagine I had lost out and fallen behind in the high speed world of modern conservation and research.

Electricity is always a problem. Originally I used to use a 1924 Lister engine than ran on Kerosene or even cooking oil that gave some 1.VA. Enough to run the TV and 3 lights for a couple of hours but useless for working on a computer for 6 hrs of the day or using a kettle. I still have it and it still works but it isn’t very economical. It is also a beast to start. You have to prime it with petrol and hand crank the huge fly wheel and continue until you are exhausted and totally beaten, and only then would it give an encouraging cough. By this time the sun has long since set and you can’t see a thing. But if a machine ever had a soul it is this 85 year old engine. When working it thumps away in a small shed made of chicken wire, long grass and cement-wash to deaden the sound. As a child the steady beat of a distant generator was part of family life and I was only aware of it when it was finally turned off when we were all in bed. It has the same effect on me now and most obligingly if I fall asleep with it on it knows and runs out of fuel.

I had a total of 5 generators of the more modern handy sort. They put out 1-5kVA and are very popular. So popular that all 5 were stolen. I chained them into concrete and they would not be there in the morning. One very painful episode happened after about 1 year of being without power. I finally decided to build a metal cage in a concrete foundation. Into this I put the brand new generator. It worked for one night. It hadn’t even cooled down before 3 people came silently and took it away. Solar panels are very expensive. You can buy a brand new generator for much less than one useless solar panel. The supposed eco-friendly side I have never understood when one looks at the staggeringly expensive array of lead batteries soaking in hydrochloric acid. More lead oxides there than I could ever put into the atmosphere with a life time of generators. But I did finally give in. As it happened I had a bright young builder working here at the time thatching the roof. He told me of new solar panels he knew of being sold at subsidy price by a goodly NGO near Kibwesi. I trusted him with a lot of money and sure enough I had two new solar panels (and receipts) and I was able to run the house on a few low Watt bulbs for a few hours. But a week after he left one of the panels was missing. I had no idea who it could have been. But the next day the police turned up with the young builder in the back of a police Land cruiser, and the solar panel. I was surprised but happy to see my panel was back. “Oh no”, they said “this and that other panel on your roof belong to a railway station on the Mombasa /Nairobi line, we will take them both now sir!”

I do use solar most of the time these days and when the days are dark and gloomy I drive my car up to the back door and boost the system with jump leads. Munir my colleague in the Peregrine Fund suggested I get a printer to save the whole day chore of driving into Nairobi to print out one page. I bought at his suggestion a fantastic but reasonably priced laser printer. It remains in its box because it uses as much power as an electric cooker! With all the solar in the world and the car going at full revs the inverter cannot push out enough to fire up the printer. I am a TV addict (a newish thing for me and helpful in keeping my language skills). If there is a good movie I flatten the car battery in an hour. Good for keeping my TV viewing to less than average, but bad for leaping into the car in the morning.

So I built a wind turbine. To some friends surprise I “surfed” the internet when in Nairobi and found a design for a 10ft three blade wooden windmill. It had a lot of plans regarding using large magnets that are impossible to import into this country. (Magnets are restricted on plane flights!). Earlier I had borrowed a small but fiercely expensive wind generator meant for sailing boats. I stuck it on a pole. It had a nasty look about it and when it ran it seemed to wind me up too. It spun with a vengeance and scared all my birds. It put out next to nothing, cost a fortune and one day as I stood looking at it, it killed three Hildebrand’s Starlings who flew right into the blades. I sent it away. But a huge blade generator may rotate at a leisurely pace and have a soothing effect. I had images of a Dutch mill and a pleasant rural scene in which I was able to catch up with the modern world.

I spent weeks carving out the blades, weighing, calibrating and balancing them. They had to be perfect and it wasn’t easy to do with hand tools. The final day came when Mwanzia and Jonathan and I hoisted it up on a crude 8 ft pole. The tips of the blades, 5ft in radius were only two feet off the ground. That’s as high up as I wanted to go because it had to be hidden from the hawks and eagles. I had the presence of mind to put a tail on it and tether it to an old eagle perch so it would not swing around. We sat back and it started to turn. It picked up speed. It became a blur and we all sort cover to reconsider the situation. Who was going to stop the thing? We drew straws and I lost. I snuck up to it and jammed a pole into the bearings and ran away. Ha! I thought, no thief is going to come and pinch this thing. I would finally have electricity.

I put an old converser belt motor with a permanent magnet on it. If this spun it would put out 12-15v DC at some 3-5 Amps, enough to charge a good number of batteries. The good thing about it was that I could also use it as a lathe by attaching it to a car battery. I lathed out 2 pulleys at a 1/3 ratio. (see photo). The end result was a fine wind turbine that could knock out enough power to run the house and even get that wretched laser printer working. I would be set! I could sit at home and operate an office, use the computer, watch my TV in the evening and turn on a few lights. It worked too!

But the thing spun like a lunatic. It hummed outside and drove my staff and I into a heightened sense of foreboding. The eagles and hawks stood rigid on their perches and the movement of plains game around the house vanished. What the heck! Finally after 15 years I was connected! Yes sir, I had electricity and I can print out a piece of paper! My TV drummed on till 11PM! Who cares if it plasters a few silly starlings!

All this was finally completed in good working order for the first time only last week. Folks in Nairobi city often sit in the dark with their power cuts…but not I. Huh, damned city folks. Nothing better than making your own electricity.

Today we had an accident. I was in my garage, an old tin roofed thing with no walls and breeding Red-billed Tick Birds in the supporting uprights. In it is a wrecked ultralight plane, a sad memory of better times, a car, a 75cc motorbike and carton loads of bones of dead vultures and eagles. I was busy working on the bench-vice which has just shredded its main screw and talking politics to Mwanzia and Jonathan. They stood to my left. Only 50 ft away the wind generator was busy whizzing around. We had all talked ourselves silly about how amazing it was, and how we should all make them for the improvement of rural economy of our country. The wind on the plains gusts terribly. A steady 10 knot can suddenly hit 40 knots when a whirl-wind rushes past. We all stand still, close our eyes, let it rearrange out hair styles and continue talking after it has past. But with this whirling monster dangerously close we had other things to worry about. We abandoned our job and wandered over to stare at the turbine.

Another gust came while I was in the process of understanding the danger of our situation. A five foot radius has a ten foot circumference. That’s larger than most propellers on a 20 seater turbine powered aeroplane. The revolutions per minute hit a standard 500-800 on this turbine. But it can peak at 2000rpm in strong winds. That’s a few hundred RPM less than a full throttle turbine engine but much more than a helicopter. I had earlier weighed each blade at just under 4kg. That’s heavier than an aeroplane propeller blade. Right now, while we stood with our arms hanging by our sides with our mouths open in awe, this turbine had the same kind of energy and inertia of a large aeroplane engine.

Mwanzia inspecting the damage.

We were 15ft behind it. Mwanzia and Jonathan were looking at it in amazement as the gust hit us. I had had a few too many cups of coffee that morning and I am survivor of a few too many plane crashes to not have a survival switch flick earlier than most. The wind lifted the roof of the garage, we all closed our eyes and the blades screamed and clicked! The next half second passed my brain at the same speed as the experimental car crash dummy “accidents”. I turned and saw Mwanzia and Jonathan unmoved, there wasn’t much I could do, each man for himself. I turned the other way and started to run. Sadly I missed the slow motion lifting off of the turbine into the sky as it main bearing broke, and its slow motion shattering of limbs as it hit the ground and sent pieces flying, as in the movies. Fragmented bits and pieces blew past my head and something hit me in the back of the leg. I lept forward dramatically onto a pile of old corrugated iron roofing sheets that appeared in my way.

All was quite. Mwanzia and Jonathan, completely unscathed looked at each other. I had just received a quart of adrenalin and was very jumpy. The caffeine didn’t help. I was annoyed that they had seen the whole thing, frame by frame unscathed and I had a sharp splinter in my leg and had fallen uncomfortably. I couldn’t believe my eyes at the destruction. The machine lay dormant and quite. We spread out silently and wandered about picking up pieces of blades. Some large pieces had flown on the top of my roof some 70 meters away.

I got to use that fancy laser jet printer just once.

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Category: Rehabilitation | Date: Jan 24 2008 | By: admin

Wahlberg’s Eagle.

The Wahlberg’s Eagle is a small version of the more commonly encountered Tawny Eagle. Unlike them however they have short crests and 2 or 3 colour morphs, one a russet brown the other almost cream white. The third ‘morph’ is something in between that can be very confusing. ‘Morphs’ are colour variations predetermined at conception with which they remain for life. A ‘phase’ is a transitory thing, like being a teenager. A phase is something one goes through, and it cannot be applied to animals of differing colour (except perhaps chameleons and such).Environmental conditions can alter the colour of the individual. For example if you happen to be on the equator and at high altitude you will be hammered by ultraviolet light and be bleached more than if you live in dark gloomy temperate parts. I have seen Tawny Eagles on the high plateaus of Ethiopia that were pearly white because of this.

The Wahlberg’s Eagle is quite powerful for its size. Weighing in at only 1-1.5 kg it has a foot mass almost the same size as a small Steppe Eagle weighing nearly three times more. Despite what must be inconclusive DNA analysis it has been swapped from one genus to another. It may either be a Hieraaetus “Hawk Eagle” or an Aquila…a member of the ‘true’ mostly large brown eagles. But when you look at a pale morph individual with a perky crest, listen to its weird pipping call, see it fly and stoop and question its odd inter-African movements it begins to look like the Booted Eagle a mostly Eurasian small Hawk Eagle.

Around the 22nd Nov 2007 I got a message from Andrew in Lamu that he had a young eagle brought to him by kids and wasn’t too sure what it was or what to do with it. I saw the picture on the email in a cyber cafe at the airport and it had the typical impish face of the Wahlberg’s Eagle. The photo opposite shows the deep darkened eyebrow with a short curved down mouth and fairly small bill typical of this species. I asked him to contact Susannah Goss who had a Wahlberg’s too and could advice while I was away on the India trip. It was critical he feed it properly and that he not associate too closely with it lest it “imprint” of him and end up being a fruitcake for the rest of its life. I hoped that the most important point got across and that is to feed it as much calcium as possible. I think I messed up in advising calcium lactate rather than calcium phosphate. The difference is minimal, only that the phosphate in calcium phosphate offsets some of the gain that the calcium gives in the usual diet of captive birds. A young growing bird is one of the fastest growing animals on earth, and its bones grown at a terrifying rate and they need calcium immediately. Young eagles of course get their calcium from the bones and flesh of animals that the parents kill and bring into the nest. The ideal choice in such a situation is to duplicate exactly what the parents feed the chick. But it isn’t easy finding enough ground squirrels, francolin, rodents, small hares and small birds so the next best thing has to do. Andrew had fewer choices than most on the island of Lamu, but I think he found small chickens and beef etc. You can do quite well on just these two foods so long as there isn’t a scrap of beef fat (which is a killer), and can use good multi Vit and add calcium. It isn’t great, but it will do for larger raptors. It’ll kill smaller ones.

The year previously Susannah driving up from the coast with her family saw some kids swinging around a baby eagle by its wing stubs selling it to passers by. Outraged they jumped out and gave the kids an earful and rescued the eagle. It turned out to a Wahlberg’s Eagle and it had fractured its leg. They reared it for a while but unfortunately the long arm bones had bowed due to the lack of sufficient calcium. It was easy to see when they came to my house with the baby eagle that they were all enchanted by him. But despite this affection they were all adamant that he be released one day, which sadly could not be the case…not unless he had multiple successful operations and extensive training, and was imprinted back onto his own kind. It can be done, but it may take a few years. But the leg needed immediate surgery because it had bent and healed at right angles and he would never stand properly. Often you do not have the equipment available to you nor specialised veterinary help. I think we all expect too much from “our” vet. I think we all tend to be unfair to them depending upon a miracle they achieved or a failure they committed. I admit that right now I am cautious about most due to a rather fatalistic attitude that prevails. If the bird has only a small chance of survival some vets think nothing of putting them down. But it is those birds with small chances that have made enormous contributions to what we know about raptors and their management and captive breeding. Given my own hesitation I have long had to operate on birds alone sometimes improvising along the way. Because his bones were young and still full of marrow passing an intermedullary pin through it could cause problems. So it had to be fixed with external arrangement of pins that puncture the leg and nearly 90 degrees that also passes through the bone and exits the skin on the other side. In some cases you can use epoxy resins to plaster the outside and keep the pins stable. But one of the better options are miniature clasps with screws that hold the pins. They are available in specialised places abroad, they may even exist somewhere in Kenya but I doubt they are small enough. With such a “hopeless case” I dreaded going to the vet for advice, visualising, completely unfairly, the lethal injection. So I use electrical contacts drilled out to form mini clamps. We call it “Jua Kali” technology here.(see photo).

By April 2007 “Wally” had recovered well, regained full use of his leg and was trained briefly to fly to the glove. But his ability to hunt was questionable as he was weak on one wing. He certainly showed little enthusiasm for it despite us trying fairly hard. So Susannah had to take him home and removed her husband’s car from the garage in order to make a pen for him. He is of course a cherished member of the family (the eagle that is) and spoilt rotten. He could wait until one day, by enormous chance a female Wahlberg’s was brought in that could not be released. What are the chances? Hundreds to one. Wahlberg’s Eagles have declined drastically throughout Kenya. I used to go down the Thika road just outside Nairobi with the legendary late Dr Leslie Brown to his then famous “Eagle Hill” in Embu. On the way there were Wahlberg’s Eagle nests in plenty. In less than 10 years there were none. They used to nest in Karen and Langata within the city limits, but not for a very long time. In Nyeri I knew of a few pairs and again they are long since gone. They are inter-African migrants, arriving possibly from the well wooded miombo or even central African forests to breed in Oct and then leave in Feb-March. But I have seen all year round pairs especially in Tsavo where they still occur in fairly normal numbers. They are not adverse to people. The coastal strip is teeming with people who are not (as these two birds prove) adverse to direct persecution. But they still breed there in exotic trees. That their distribution and numerical status may have changed as not a surprise, but I suspect that their migratory habits may have changed too. There is little stopping a migratory eagle moving from one place to another if the conditions suit it.

The Wahlberg’s from Lamu had not faired as well as Susannah’s. Andrew texted and emailed from Lamu that it was not standing anymore and was not eating so well. I asked Susannah to pick her up at Wilson Airport where she arrived in a huge cardboard box. After checking it over the left leg was broken and not healed, the right humerus was fractured but healing, as was the left radius and ulna. The right foot seemed to curl inward. It was all the result of very fragile thin bones and lack of calcium. I opted to fix the broken leg immediately using epoxy resin, car body filler and bamboo sticks. It worked although there is a slight rotation on the union. You can imagine that a young eagle with very limited ability to stand or move can be messy. So she spent most of the time lying down in a fake nest, or being left on the lawn to socialise with Vero’s the eagle (who looked like she would not mind eating the baby eagle).

The picture opposite (23rd Jan 2007) shows the bird standing on the leg that was broken but now healed. The right foot is still curled inward and is useless. I will try to keep it permanently open by sealing the foot in a fibre glass lightweight cast. If she can stand and feed for herself then I will be happy. She has just finished growing all her feathers and would be fledging right now. She has a potential mate, and in time, if all goes well we may be able to build them a special shed and allow them to breed.

Why? Why not! Years ago no-body questioned this. Everyone used to brag out loud or in the press if they bred an eagle. There’d be hearty pats on the back despite the fact that few had any idea what the next step would be. Today when the need is many times this achievement can be deflated. But it should not be, especially here in east Africa where so few attempt it. To me one of the most important aspects of these “problem” birds is that it creates passionate interest that is very difficult to start in their absence. To be stuck with the responsibility of looking after an eagle or hawk changes people. These two eagles had a lot of people running around trying to help and they will continue to do so if they are allowed to care. That’s what matters.

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Category: Black Sparrowhawk | Date: Jan 17 2008 | By: admin

Quasimodo the Black Sparrowhawk.

The young male Black Sparrowhawk with a fractured spine and brain injury is doing well. Because he is a mess, stands crooked and leers at the world with his head slightly to one side I have named him Quasimodo after the Hunch-back of Notre Dame. When I received him back in Oct 2007, he lay as so many new arrivals do in the bottom of a cardboard box in a pitiful heap. His head curled round and round insanely and none of his limbs worked. I suspect that had any vet’ seen him they would have put him down immediately. But when I gave him food he tried to take it. He missed the morsel at the end of my finger tips by a good inch, but he tried until he got it, head reeling like a drunk. He had guts and wasn’t going to give in easily! I liked him immediately.

Quasimodo. Christmas day 2007. (note droopy left wing)

Scrambling about on his side I noticed that one side was more paralysed than the other. I guess more paralysed is like more pregnant. It is either one thing or another. But in his case the lack of movement was partial and it came and went. I cannot remember which side was worse because as time went on he swapped his ‘good’ side a few times. This was important as it possibly meant a brain injury rather than a spinal one, not that it matters because there was nothing one could do about it.

Even if he was fine and not spinning on his head like a break-dancer it is customary among falconers (but sadly not all rehabers) to immediately wrap up the tails of raptors and sometimes their wings in water-soluble gummed tape. Even with the best of new arrivals (and accipiters especially), they tend to throw themselves around and snap these flight feathers. Little else could be as bad. A fractured wing can take weeks to heal, whereas a fractured tail feather or primary will take one whole year before it is replaced. In some ways a fractured flight feather is worse than a broken wing. A broken flight feather will add stress to its neighbour and have a dominoes effect, making the whole lot snap. Even the loss of 2 adjacent primaries or tail feathers can so incapacitate a raptor as to render it useless in trying to catch its prey and this explains the almost fanatical idolatry falconers have for the quality of feathers. Those “rehabers” that let hawks loose in chicken wire “flight pens” for “exercise” are one of my pet annoyances. They all too often see nothing wrong in throwing tattered hawks with missing feathers into the wind and claiming that “it must be fine, because we never saw it again”.

With Quasimodo I decided to go the extra mile and wrap him up from his shoulders to his tail, leaving room for his legs and backside to hang out. He lay like a mummified pharaoh and looked even worse. The idea was to minimise any fracture or damage that he may have. I did not take him for X-ray for two reasons: One. The drive there and back will take the entire day and possibly kill him. Two. I admit to a growing alienation with the vet’s’ I use. They are overly pragmatic and given to putting hawks down when little realising the value of the animal in the bird orientated world in which I live. Quasimodo wouldn’t have stood a chance. To make him happier I hung him from a cord tied behind his back. His feet peddled madly in mid air, so I put a cushion therefor him to hold onto. He sat suspended in a large dog box during the night, and suspended outside under a large eagle perch during the day. I wrote about him back then in this “blog”, but wasn’t too sure if I should make his progress known just in case he died, or I had to put him down. But steadily he improved, and by the time I left for a two week trip to India he was able to stand and flop about so well that he was retired to a small enclosed shed some 16 by 24ft by 12 ft high. Not big enough to cause him damage, not small enough to drive him crazy. The shed had solid walls and perches so arranged as to allow him to progress from the ground up and without danger of harming himself. There he sat for two weeks but each day he was fed on the fist by either Mwanzia of Jonathan each day. He had earlier grown accustomed to feeding on my fist. Indeed when he was wrapped up, the only way he could eat was with assistance. The only way he could defecate was if I stuck a cotton bud up his rear and massaged the stuff out. You can imagine that this level of high maintenance meant that other chores such as making a living had to be put aside. The assisted defecation bit was my sole duty, as it was a little too subtle an art for Mwanzia or Jonathan to complete successfully. There came a point where I thought that I should have to put him down and get on with life. I set a date just before leaving for India and you cannot believe the relief (of us all) when Quasimodo managed this task all on his own!

When back from the Indian trip I got him out of the shed in mid December and quickly trained him using falconry techniques to hop to the fist for food. I increased the distance each day until he came some 20m on a thin cord. The process is simple enough but anyone who has trained an accipiter will know that they are often difficult and very nervous. They are usually distant and unfriendly, misinterpreting every move as a subversive attack. But despite their suspicion they are usually very fast learners and quick to fly free and hunt. Quasimodo’s problems and his prior experience meant that he was the reverse. He was and remains very well behaved and is quite happy around his select company, but his flying skills lacked co-ordination.

Flying upside-down to lure!

He would miss the fist for example, zoom past, and suddenly put on his breaks and turn around to come back. This process may have required falling to the ground, turning around and rethinking what his mission was, before getting it right. It all happened so fast however that one second he was on his perch 20 m away the next he was on the fist, but he had gone around a few times in a flurry of wings. There was something not quite right. On the fist he could sometimes stand fine with both feet gripping the glove, but when excited his right side collapses and he starts flopping about. He isn’t having a “fit” although it may look like it. His face registered intense concentration as he struggled with his body. Although it looks as though his right wing and leg are weak or not “wired” properly, it is his right foot that always catches the glove or the lure. His left leg is often left out of the business and isn’t used for clasping. There is something not entirely consistent with a traumatic injury to the brain or spine. I wonder if it may not be a decease that interferes with his motor control? This may explain why it is that at times he seems much more controlled than at others.

Flying right way up after lure.

Normally with training hawks you have to take your time and fly them on the long line for up to 50m and spend a few weeks in this process. But I knew Quasimodo wasn’t going anywhere even if he tried so I flew him free only after a few days. I noticed that once in the air he flew quite well despite the landings and take-offs. By the end of the week he was flying all over the place from tree to tree as free as any bird. He continues to crash into the glove or lure, and I wince every time he tries to land on vicious thorn trees. We go for long walks and he flies from tree or to glove for at least 2 km each day. I took a number of pictures of him standing and flying. You can see that each time he takes off his right wing is last to open and his body rolls to the right. Sometimes this is so dramatic that he is almost upside-down! I have been able to see him hunt seriously only once, after some Babblers that happened to be in a bush beneath him. He was very excited about it and although made a brave effort and pursued one over 50m to the next thicket (in which it refused to come out) I noticed he has a lot further to go before one can even think of release. He does know how to kill however. He disgraced himself by flying down to my chicken-rearing pen and nailing a chicken a bit bigger than he. I know that Black Sparrowhawks can be terrible chicken thieves. They give all raptors here a very bad name, despite nearly all not being physically incapable taking chickens. But I had no idea that he’d find them so quickly. The chicken pen is next to the staff quarters about 200 yards away. He must have heard them, and he must have had previous chicken encounters to know what to do next! I have never had any of my hawks or eagles take these chickens before, because they are well protected by thickets and pens. While the chicken definitely didn’t benefit the hawk at least showed just how powerful he is, for it was all over in seconds.Had I a bird dog I would fly him at francolin and quail, but in just over one year I had three pointers die. I have a neighbour with a pointer and perhaps we can put the two together and go out and try. I think he will be quite good at it.

Right-side-down style of flight.

Although we took great pains to keep his feathers in good shape, his constant falling about and rough treatment has meant that a few have broken. They have been “imped” back (replaced with a pin stuck in the shaft). But I see that he never preens. In handling him I noticed too that his uropygial gland (oil gland at the base of his “parsons nose”) is swollen and unused. I question if he will be able to moult properly.This illustrates a few important points about rehabing predators. The average person would see Quasimodo today sitting outside on his perch and flying kilometres from tree to tree at top speed and assume that he is fit enough for release. Most would not even have given him a chance to fly in a shed that we considered “small” and inappropriate for exercise. That he can demonstrate his flying ability 100 times more than any confined raptor is no qualification if he cannot hunt. Even if he does manage to catch things with me I have every reason to doubt that he could survive if released.

I use the term ‘release’ in a muddled way. One could assume that in wildlife rehabilitation “release’ is that dramatic moment when the cage door is flung open and the animal bounds away to freedom for its first time since capture. Release to a falconer is a very different thing. In effect they fling the doors open many times each day, whistle and it comes back. They experience a field that few rehabers ever have a chance to duplicate. Namely the ability to observe the animal in the wild state act out its various functions uninhibited by cage walls with unlimited freedom to move. The whistle brings them back. In reality they are released each day. But in falconry parlance this is simply called ‘flying them free’. To release them permanently into the wild is a lengthy process that is termed “hacking back”. It is that period in which the hawk is allowed to disassociate itself from its human partner…but in which it is still looked after. It learns slowly how to fit back into the wild. It is an anti-climax with little theatre and no tearful moment. The release should take weeks and in some cases it can last for years. If it doesn’t it is likely to be a failure, even with birds that are well proven as hunters. This should be of vast significance to those rehabers who make no such provision for their birds who have not even been allowed to fly free. The rehabilitation of raptors would be a hopeless exercise if there wasn’t the recognition of a few basic requirements. The raptor being released should be able to fly like an athlete, and no cage managed bird can ever hope to achieve this first goal. It should know how to outwit and out-fly its prey, catch and consume it away from pirates. I would have to acknowledge that this particular Black Sparrowhawk is getting close to fulfilling most of these stipulations. But finally there is another condition that needs to be met, and that is “gut feeling”. My gut feeling isn’t good. Quasimodo won’t make it. He might in a year or two. But until then I want to see him flawless in his behaviour and I should wait to see if he moults normally. Meanwhile I shall take him out flying as often as I can allow and give him as good a life as he can hope to have.

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Category: India | Date: Jan 02 2008 | By: admin

Raptors of India.
Species account and abundance.

There are some 66 diurnal species that occur within the mainland Indian sub-continent, of which 38 could be said to breed within its geographical boundaries. Some 24 owl species occur, which is remarkably diverse despite many being restricted to small pockets. The numbers of breeding resident diurnal raptors is not that numerous and there would seem to be empty niches. There is for example no very large eagle south of the high Himalayan range. There are very few resident accipiters and Buteos south of the northern highlands.
One of the things a visitor to India is constantly reminded about is that the country is enormous and in some respects is more diverse than the continent of Africa with which its fauna is somewhat obscurely often compared. It has high temperate Alpine habitat (E.G. Kashmir) to is far north and true sand dune deserts such as the Thar Desert on the Pakistan border. To its north east lies a merging zone of fauna and flora between China and India (Arunachal Pradesh), where Clouded Leopards, Red Pandas, Gibbons and forest falconets still occur in dense moist jungles. In the core of the Indian peninsular are the highland wet mountains or the Western Ghats. It has every conceivable habitat and species of raptors that go with it. The only problem is that these places are very far apart and difficult to get to….requiring a fair amount of red-tape and reliance upon others, be it local authorities, a driver or a guide.
There is a division in the distribution of raptor species to “highland” regions and “the rest” of India. There are those highland species, those that dwell in cold rugged mountainous terrain, which include the “typical” Eurasian counterparts like the Golden Eagle, Booted Eagle, Eurasian Griffons, Lammergeyer, Eurasian Kestrel, Hobby, Common Buzzard, Long-legged Buzzard, Eurasian Goshawk and Eurasian Sparrowhawk. These species may prefer the higher latitude and the cool climate where tundra, Alpine, temperate broad-leaf and coniferous forest merge. Some may, like their more western European relatives, undertake a migration south and these may scatter throughout the peninsular. If the distribution maps in the guide books are a true indication there would seem to be a back and forth movement between these highlands and the vast interior of continental Eurasia to the semi-arid plains of southern Pakistan, the Punjab and western Rajasthan. Presumably the Himalayas themselves provide such an obstacle that raptors are obliged to fly around them. They share their summer breeding grounds with ‘true’ Asian and far eastern species such as the Lesser Fish Eagle, Himalayan Griffon , Red-napped Shaheen, Collared Falconet and the Oriental Hobby. Other highland species occur both in the Himalayan highlands and in the “Ghats”, highland ridges of high rain-fall on the East and West of the peninsular. These include the Indian Black Eagle, Crested Goshawk, Besra, Rufous-Bellied Eagle, Mountain Hawk Eagle and possibly the Grey-headed Fish Eagle. The North Eastern corner squeezed between the Himalayan Mountains and Burma and allowing passage into China, while rich in mammal and avian diversity has a few special raptors which include the Jerdon’s and Black Baza and Pied Falconet.

Changeable Hawk Eagle bathing in Bandhavgarh.

‘The rest’ includes Black Shouldered Kite, Black Kite, Brahminy Kite, White Bellied Sea Eagle (Marine only), Pallas’s Fish Eagle (possibly restricted to northern Indian inland wetlands), Egyptian, White rumped and Long-billed Vultures, (the Slender-billed is apparently restricted to the Gangetic Plain, although its distribution is still unclear), Red Headed Vulture, Short-toed Eagle, Crested Serpent Eagle, Shikra, Oriental Honey-Buzzard (breeding status unclear), White-eyed Buzzard (apparently an inter-Indian migrant/opportunistic breeder)., Bonelli’s eagle, Changeable Hawk Eagle and Red-necked Falcon. These occur across a broad area of fairly monotypic habitat.

The Shikra (Accipiter badius)

There are two Eagles, the Tawny and the Indian Lesser Spotted Eagle that are supposed to occur across the country, although the Lesser Spotted has a more northern in distribution. These two species are poorly known, and certainly very rare. The Tawny Eagle looks and behaves so very differently to the African Tawny that is deserves much more attention, especially as it is in our experience incredibly rare.

The Indian Tawny Eagle.

The Indian Lesser Spotted, newly described may easily be confused with both migrant Spotteds and thus be subject to confusion. Again its status requires cautious examination. Two Large falcons the Lugger and Peregrine Falcon look on the distribution maps to cover the entire region. However the Lugger, based on what are now quite extensive field trips must be considered either critically endangered or perhaps even regionally extinct. True it occurs still in the dry deserts on the Pakistan border, but elsewhere in the heart of its previously known distribution none were seen. The Peregrine Falcon in India is divided by 3 sub-species, F.peregrinus babylonicus; F. p. peregrinator and F. p. calidus. But this seems overly simplified because our team have seen what appears to be year-round breeding peregrines inseparable from the nominate race F. p. peregrinus. So different are they from the Black Shaheen with whom they share their environment that the possibility for racial intergrades seems unlikely. Could there be yet another race of Peregrines residing within India?

Black Shaheen behind a typical Peregrine we saw in the Chambal river. (note this ‘normal’ Peregrine is “pasted” into the picture for comparison). The vast difference between these races is readily observed. There remains a question as to the status of these races.

Similarly the owls are divided in distribution by those that prefer high cold temperate ranges, conifer and deciduous forests, moist dense forests, semi-arid and ‘the rest’. As an example of the extremes in climate, rarities include Arctic strays like the Snowy Owl and Boreal Owl that occur in the same country as the Oriental Bay Owl! The profusion of Scops and Glaucidium Owlets is particularly impressive.

Collared Owlet (Glaucidium brodiei) . and The Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo bengalensis).

Brown Fish Owl (Keputa zeylonensis)

Inevitably we were to err in making comparisons with Africa. In Kenya where Munir and I live we could not but be surprised at the similarity of terrain, but the absence of common conspecifics, or the prevalence of those species we would least expect to see. For example, the Lugger Falcon (very similar to the Lanner Falcon) remained a dramatic example of apparent super-abundance of available habitat that was empty of its presence. Much to my chagrin Munir and Pat went to western Rajasthan after I left them in Delhi on the 9th Dec 07 to see Luggers aplenty and the migrant Himalayan and Black Vultures. Munir believed that some of the Luggers nested in old crow nests on pylons, implying that their nesting tastes were not that demanding and that the vast areas on Uttar and Madhya Pradesh in which we saw none boded a malevolent reason.
The Bonelli’s Eagle similar in most respects to our African Hawk Eagle was surprisingly often recorded in habitats admittedly under some form of protection, but still in areas of proximity to humans. But the African Hawk Eagle in Kenya has seen vast regional extinctions, and is even very rare in our smaller parks and reserves. It simply cannot mix with people, and is one of the most sensitive species even more so than the Martial Eagle. Why is it then that the Bonelli’s seems to be doing quite well and the Lugger so badly?
In Kenya we are used to enormous habitat variety within a very short space. We can drop from Alpine areas, through conifer, broad-leaf forests, down to open grass savannas, through Acacia dominated riparian areas criss-crossing semi arid landscapes in less than a morning’s drive. Each habitat has its own raptor specialists, and maybe of some significance, each biome may or may not be currently favoured by rainfall. These mixed habitats and discordant rainfall distributions do not help in pigeon-holing breeding seasons or timing migrant raptor visitations. In more temperate India, within less congested habitats in small areas we may fail in meeting some of our ’spoiled’ expectations. Pat for example, coming from both South Africa and mid West America commented that he saw about as many raptors per kilometre in South Africa, but admitted that mid west USA had much more.
Whatever the potential for misconceptions, the fact that one can travel for so far and see so few resident raptors is disturbing. That one may encounter migrant species in greater abundance than resident species is a poor index of relative abundance, but it is helpful in describing the overall picture. In Kenya for example we see considerably more migrant Pallid Harriers (in the region of some 100 to 1) than the local resident African Marsh Harriers. One of these is acknowledged as threatened by IUCN criteria, the other not. It is actually a poor example because it is the opposite of what one would hope, but it does illustrate the need to think things through and to be cautious and precise before blowing the whistle.

Nevertheless there remains an uncomfortable feeling that some raptors are very much rarer than they were.

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