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Flying With Falcons

I tracked the falcon across the Sun as it banked sharply left, then swooped in low between the fir trees. He was coming fast—too fast! I didn’t want to look. I was certain he would crash. Barely a few feet from the ground the bird nabbed its prey (in this case a lure attached to a rope) and effortlessly cleared the trees. I lifted my hand from my racing heart. The audience applauded. The peregrine falcon, named Bandit, easily landed beside Falconer Jim Tigan and looked at us as if to say, “You’re so gullible.” The lure was quickly exchanged for a piece of raw quail from Tigan’s pocket. “It’s just like paying ball with your dog,” said Tigan. Uh huh. Ball at 200 miles per hour!

Bandit’s recent acrobatic hunting demo was part of a raptor show at Skamania Lodge on the shores of the Columbia River where I was making an author appearance. Fascinated, I went to each of the four shows put on by Raptor Adventures that weekend and discovered how extraordinary these creatures are. Falcons can see a piece of meat the size of an eraser from a mile away! They are the fastest animal on Earth (National Geographic clocked one at 240 miles per hour), and they use their speed along with their balled-up claws to knock their victims out of the sky. Even so, most falcons weigh less than two pounds.

“Why doesn’t he fly away when you let him loose?” asked a child near me. I had been wondering the same thing. Tigan’s partner, Kathleen Collins, explained that hunting on his own in the wild, Bandit might only be successful twenty percent of the time. When he plays the game with Jim, however, he’s successful one hundred percent of the time. He always gets a meal after he nabs the lure. “Bandit knows Jim’s the best hunting partner he’ll ever have,” said Kathleen with a grin. “Would you leave that?”

Humans, I think, have much in common with raptors (though Jim and Kathleen say they make terrible pets). We, too, are strong, yet fragile. We seek to stretch our wings, yet are happy to return to the people and places we find most secure. And though success often slips from our grasp, we keep trying. I like that about us. We are resilient. We are survivors. We are where we belong. Still, I long for that which I cannot have. Isn’t that how it usually works? My feet must forever remain on the ground, but my heart—oh, my heart—it flies with the falcon.