AS SOON AS Hashbrown launches from his arm, Tyler Sladen begins operating. I observe, sprinting by the tender New Mexican sand, dodging cholla cactus and piles of trash, and making an attempt to not lose sight of hawk or hunter. I can principally sustain with Sladen, a 27-year-old Army veteran accustomed to operating at excessive altitude. But Hashbrown is a special beast. In the time it takes the juvenile northern goshawk to soar half a mile throughout the hills, we’ve barely coated 80 yards. In the gap, Sladen’s buddy Kevin Jackson works their mixed pack of setters, nonetheless combing the comb for quail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWp7XcPc1gg/
We’re searching a piece of public land on the outskirts of Albuquerque. It’s an off-roading hotspot and a dumping floor for all the pieces from one-eyed dolls to rest room seats. The place holds quail and rabbits, although, and there’s little competitors for sport because it’s unlawful to discharge a firearm right here. But that doesn’t imply we don’t hear gunshots close by.
When we do attain Hashbrown, he’s perched on the very best bush round, a vantage level from which to observe for sport whereas ready for Sladen to gather him. Beside the sage sits Trigger, a 4-year-old Vizsla and the hawk’s devoted bodyguard.
Vizslas had been traditionally bred as Hungarian falconry dogs, and he, at the least, can sustain with Hashbrown. When Hashbrown takes off in pursuit of quail, Trigger does the grunt work on the bottom, re-flushing birds that attempt to cover within the brush and standing guard every time the hawk makes a kill. Birds of prey, particularly young ones, are weak to every kind of hazards, together with different folks’s dogs, home windows, and automobiles. They’re additionally in peril from coyotes, typically attracted by the misery squeals of the dying rabbits he catches. For now, although, all is calm. Sladen raises a gloved arm, and Hashbrown hops neatly onto the provided wrist.
“Falconry is kind of like a dragon that you’ll continuously chase to make everything perfect,” he says. “Perfect for me is different than perfect for someone else. Honestly, my ideal falconry would be to have all my dogs working harmoniously, finding birds, backing and honoring, and pointing a bird. I’d walk in and flush that bird. And Hashbrown would catch it off the initial flush. The amount of times it goes like that? Not often. [But] if I wanted to stack tailgates [with birds], I would just pack a gun.”
The hawk combs a curved beak by his feathers earlier than peering round once more, head on a swivel. The desert cottontail he’d flown after escaped down a gap, however there’s lots extra sport to be discovered. Birds miss, similar to human hunters, and that is Hashbrown’s first season. It’s a vital coaching interval for the juvenile hawk, and one which calls for a lot of Sladen’s free time.
“I’ve been with that bird every single day [since I got him],” Sladen says, whose job in nuisance wildlife management offers him a versatile schedule. “If you want to do falconry at this level, it’s not something you can just wake up and do.”
In early 2019, Sladen drew certainly one of New Mexico’s six goshawk tags, which allowed him to legally accumulate and possess a wild raptor. All of April, May, and most of June, he scouted for a nest within the mountains. After finding a nest of the right species, Sladen nonetheless needed to attain it.
“Climbing the tree can be the easiest thing in the world, or it can be absolutely terrifying if you’ve never done it before,” Sladen says of pulling the chick. “To get attacked by a pair of birds [protecting their young] while you’re dangling 80 feet in a tree, and they’re drawing blood in a way that hurts? It’s not something you can really be prepared for. It’s just something you’ve got to go through.”
This is a ceremony of passage, and a significant time dedication, which many falconers don’t even try, selecting as a substitute to purchase birds from breeders or seize adults and launch them on the finish of the season. In 2019, Sladen and his buddy had been the one two New Mexico hunters who stuffed their tags.
When he introduced the goshawk chick home, although, that’s when the work actually began.
the flight,” says Sladen. It’s additionally an opportunity to observe a predator pursue its pure quarry. “It’s something they interact with every day. But now you’re a part of that.” Nick Kelley
We teamed up with Project Upland for this story, which initially ran as “Prey Drive” within the Fall 2020 challenge. Check out the feature film from our hunt or learn extra OL+ stories.
