Learning about hawks and raptors

photo of merlin by Dendroica Cerulea

I always said I wanted to work with raptors--doing surveys or nest watches, or learning to be the volunteer who holds hawks or owls at outreach events.  I got this idea from seeing someone out in the park being trained to hold a hawk. Why couldn't I do that!

After the bike tour, I contacted a local non-profit and offered to volunteer.  I figured they would put me to work in the office but the Director could tell that I really wanted to be around the birds. The non-profit houses its educational birds at various residences throughout the city.  These birds can't be released back into the wild for various reasons---partial wing amputations, improperly healed wings, lost eyes, partially blindness.  Volunteers and staff clean the enclosures each week.  She suggested I help clean the enclosures.

I was a bit resistant. Really? Cleaning? But she seemed pretty certain that this was the best way to get involved. They get a lot of people wanting to volunteer who just want to touch the birds.  I imagined them inundated with New Age types wanting to commune with their spirit animal and fondle the birds.  Maybe cleaning was a screening process to see if you fit in with the staff and had a properly respectful attitude toward the birds.  And, you do have to be able to handle the physical evidence that raptors are carnivores since that  is what you will be cleaning up.  For example, they produce pellets of undigested mouse fur,  you often rake up bird skulls, and they don't like the mouse guts which they fling about. If that sounds too gross, hanging out with hawks may not be your thing after all. And, just so you know, you don't get to touch the birds.  They sit on your glove.  No petting.

Here's the thing about cleaning though.  You enter the mews and are enclosed in a good sized space with a wild raptor.  But since you take up a good amount of the space with your giant human frame it is still kind of close quarters.   A mews generally has a large platform with ramps down to the ground, a long perching bar also with a ramp, and a low perch like a tree stump.   Each bird has its favorite spot.  If the bird wants to stay far away from you, it will have to move around to avoid you while you clean and rake.  If the bird elects to stay far away from you, it  requires some synchronization as every one of your movements requires a counter-movement on the bird's part.  You have to give them a pathway to move from Spot A to Spot B.  Cleaning actually means that you are spending quality time getting to know the personality of that bird and observing the bird up close, in great detail.  You learn about the characteristics of their plumage, what they sound like, etc. 

photo of Red Tail Hawk by David Dunham

Check out the talons on this Red Tail Hawk!

The birds captured young or who have been educational birds for a very long time seem more habituated to humans.  They are fairly unconcerned that you are cleaning around them. You will be raking up the corner of mouse bits right under the large hawk which will not move.  Translation:  you will have your back to the bird and it will be mere inches from your head with its massively strong talons.  My strategy is to talk to the hawk, announce my approach, offer them the chance to move, angle myself the best I can but watch them out of the back of my head and go about my business.  It is an unusual sensation to know that you have a hawk inches from your head, watching you intently.  It fosters a genuine and very deep respect.

Some of the raptors I have met: merlin, American kestrels, Red tail hawks, Peregrine falcon, Rough-legged hawk, Ferruginous hawk, Cooper's hawk, and a Swainson's hawk.