Falconry: It’s Flying High Once Again in the Southland

Falconry, something of a dying art since the days of the Crusades, is being revived in Southern California by a cadre of enthusiasts studying the subject at night school.

Since June, Contemporary Concepts, the Learning Institute, a company that offers a variety of evening and weekend classes and seminars for adults in subjects ranging from tantric yoga to free-lance bookkeeping, has given a course in the ancient art of hunting small game with a hawk.

As far as instructor Bill Sanders knows, it is the only such course offered in the state, and seems to have filled a void for some students who were intrigued about the sport after seeing the movie “The Falcon and the Snowman.”

A Lot of Work Involved

Most students satisfy their curiosity in a single three-hour seminar that Sanders teaches once a month, covering the history of falconry from medieval times, where to buy the equipment needed to keep a bird, and how to go about getting licensed.

Quite a few lose interest when they discover how much work is involved in trapping a bird and caring for it.

“Falconry isn’t something you can do part-time,” Sanders said. Because a falconer must care for the bird, the hobby becomes “a 365-day-a-year commitment.”

Serious would-be falconers may opt to serve a private apprenticeship under Sanders, 35, one of a handful of master falconers on the West Coast.

He decided to teach his art to others because federal and state laws require falconers to serve an apprenticeship. When he got his start, 23 years ago in Pennsylvania, he had a hard time finding a master falconer to guide him.

Working in Partnership

“Falconry, which is really the art of learning to work in partnership with a raptor, is a very secretive art, jealously guarded,” Sanders said. “Those who know it, traditionally do not share it.”

The first step is to acquire a bird. There are none for sale, and it is illegal to remove one from a nest. To start, the apprentice has to trap his own red-tailed hawk or American sparrow hawk in the wild. These species are common all over Southern California in the mountains and deserts, Sanders says.

He recommends constructing a chicken-wire trap and tying thousands of slip knots all over it with heavy fishing line. He places a live white mouse inside and tosses it out alongside a canyon road.

“The hawk will hover over and then finally land, going crazy trying to get at that mouse, which never gets hurt at all,” Sanders assures his students.

When the hawk lands on the trap, its feet get caught in the fishing line.

“The bird doesn’t realize it’s caught until it tries to fly away, and then it clunks over on its head.”

The falconer has to be wearing heavy leather gloves when he extricates the hawk’s feet from the trap.

Although some hawks become quite attached to their owners, Sanders says nobody goes into falconry just to have a pet.

“The whole point is to watch them hunt,” he said. “They go catch something you scare up for them, and then they drop it and you have to go pick it up.”

Sanders said that hawks can be trained to hunt and kill jack rabbits, fox, and even deer.

“You never let them actually devour it,” he said. “You let them take a bite, then you cover it up. They’re kind of dumb. Once they drop the quarry, they never retrieve it.”

In October, Sanders was forced to practice what he preaches by going out and trapping a new hawk after his bird, “Bubba,” was attacked and killed by his dog.