Snowshoe Hare hunting with a Red-tailed Hawk

[SimoneBird]

I went out this last week to look for snowshoes around 3000' elevation with my falconry bird (a male red-tailed hawk). We needed the snowmobile and then snowshoes on ourselves. The hare numbers seem way down this year (in the Cascades) but conditions were also not perfect for tracking (heavy snow, then heavy rain). We still managed to find one and flushed it a couple times in thick trees and cover. The bird missed both times but the hare (understandably!) was not giving him a good shot. Eventually we pressured the hare enough that it went out into the open and the hawk came down out of the top of a tree and grabbed it. They ended up quite a ways from where the hawk initially hit the hare, and my bird only had him by the back legs. If only we had the flight on video! Hope you all enjoy the pics. Check out where the hare's foot is in the first photo. Also, interestingly enough, some snowshoe hares in the Cascades of WA and OR do not turn white in the winter. This is one of those hares. Washington is pretty unique in the sense that on the coast (the real coast!) the hares don't ever turn white, in the Cascades most turn white but not all and in eastern WA all the hares turn white. They are such cool critters!

[MADMAX]

Very cool
I have always wanted to do that ever since reading my side of the mountain as a kid

[Fishhunt223]

That is awesome, such a cool sport!  Your hawk is beautiful.

[cougkilr]

Very cool
I have always wanted to do that ever since reading my side of the mountain as a kid

my favorite book as a kid and probably as an adult.

[bearpaw]

Very interesting, welcome to the forum, I look forward to more stories and photos about falconry.

[Fl0und3rz]

That is way cool. Awesome bird.

[WapitiTalk1]

How cool is that. Madmax, I have that old book 

[Trapper John]

Awesome sport    I have a friend in Idaho that hunts with a hawk.
He returned his bird to the wild last year and just caught a new one last week.
Training for the new one starts in a couple of weeks.
JC 

[Bango skank]

Awesome sport    I have a friend in Idaho that hunts with a hawk.
He returned his bird to the wild last year and just caught a new one last week.
Training for the new one starts in a couple of weeks.
JC

Is that normal, to release them?  Id imagine z lot of work is put into those birds.

[MADMAX]

How cool is that. Madmax, I have that old book 

 

[Jpmiller]

Very very cool. Keep us updated on your upcoming trips too please. Always thought falconry was really cool.

[Blacklab]

👍😉🥃🇺🇸

[pianoman9701]

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[Birdgetter]

Super cool, I’ve always found falconry very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[Trapper John]

Awesome sport    I have a friend in Idaho that hunts with a hawk.
He returned his bird to the wild last year and just caught a new one last week.
Training for the new one starts in a couple of weeks.
JC

Is that normal, to release them?  Id imagine z lot of work is put into those birds.

Yes it is normal.  A lot of falconers catch their own, train them and keep them for three to five years and then let them go so they can bread in the wild.  Then they go out and trap another one always looking for this years young bird.  First year birds there is a hugh die off.  When they leave the nest they are on their own and weigh bigger then their adult parents by 5-6 oz. 

[Bango skank]

Awesome sport    I have a friend in Idaho that hunts with a hawk.
He returned his bird to the wild last year and just caught a new one last week.
Training for the new one starts in a couple of weeks.
JC

Is that normal, to release them?  Id imagine z lot of work is put into those birds.

Yes it is normal.  A lot of falconers catch their own, train them and keep them for three to five years and then let them go so they can bread in the wild.  Then they go out and trap another one always looking for this years young bird.  First year birds there is a hugh die off.  When they leave the nest they are on their own and weigh bigger then their adult parents by 5-6 oz.

Did i read that right, the fledglings are bigger than the adults?

[SimoneBird]

Glad you all enjoyed the post and I will try to post more hunts as they happen!

There are a lot of different ways to raise birds for falconry and lots of different species you can use. It is very normal to release birds that were originally taken out of the wild as "passage" (first year- on their first "passage') birds. Those birds have left the nest and been on their own for a couple to a few months (like my red-tail). When you trap them and train them, they already know how to hunt and honestly, you mostly become their hunting dog (flushing game for them) and of course caretaker if they get sick, etc. A baby bird taken out of the wild ("eyass") is going to rely on you for a lot more- carefully building its confidence with hunting and taking larger and harder game as it gets older. Many of these birds taken as babies stay with their falconer for life. Captive bred birds are also often available and stay with the falconer for life usually.

In terms of the fledglings being larger- they often have longer tails (training wheels!) making them look larger than the adults. When a raptor comes out of the nest (almost all species, except some owls which will leave the nest before full grown) it is as big as it is ever going to be (in terms of size, not weight). They may still be growing in some feathers but their *bodies* are done growing. They may have some baby fat (if they had good parents!) giving them some weight over the adults but it also would not be uncommon for young raptors to be about the same weight as their parents when leaving the nest depending on how well their parents were feeding them. It is not a hard and fast rule that the young will be heavier than their parents but it certainly can happen if the babies are well fed. That being said, many young raptors are underweight quickly if they cannot figure out how to hunt quickly on their own. As someone said above, most raptors die in their first year- up to 80-90%. Pretty amazing to think that adult raptors you see or even young ones that have made it to winter have had to kill something every single day or almost every single day to survive. While it's true raptors can go some days without eating they still have very fast metabolisms and quickly go downhill once they hit a low weight. They are amazing critters!

[lokidog]

Awesome sport    I have a friend in Idaho that hunts with a hawk.
He returned his bird to the wild last year and just caught a new one last week.
Training for the new one starts in a couple of weeks.
JC

Is that normal, to release them?  Id imagine z lot of work is put into those birds.

Yes it is normal.  A lot of falconers catch their own, train them and keep them for three to five years and then let them go so they can bread in the wild.  Then they go out and trap another one always looking for this years young bird.  First year birds there is a hugh die off.  When they leave the nest they are on their own and weigh bigger then their adult parents by 5-6 oz.

Did i read that right, the fledglings are bigger than the adults?

Yes, this is very common in the bird world. The young don't have to work as hard so they burn fewer calories while being fed by the parents. This gives them a little cushion for the learning curve of finding food on their own.


Thanks for the post!

[Jpmiller]

I've heard of guys pulling chicks out of nests, how do they trap a year old.bird that can fly?

[lokidog]

I've heard of guys pulling chicks out of nests, how do they trap a year old.bird that can fly?

Lots of videos. ;-)