Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:31 PM CST
Mississippi falconer uses peregrine to hunt ducks
GRENADA, Miss. (AP) — Harvey Leslie walked into the cattle pasture and held up his left arm.
He took the hood off of Isabella, a South American peregrine falcon. Leslie was about 100 yards away the first of three ponds, where four ducks had been spotted. Isabella took off about two hours before sunset and flew about 600 feet up, circling the pond while Leslie walked to its edge.
Leslie set the hunt in motion. He inched up out of sight of the four mallards. Then he sprang up, yelling at them so they would fly off.
When Isabella saw the ducks take off, she dropped from the sky at almost 200 mph, clipping one hen as she flew by.
The four mallards, however, flew low to the ground and managed to reach a nearby second pond. Water was their sanctuary.
“Once they get in the water, they’re safe,” Leslie said. “Actually, she hit one today and it got back in the water.“
The ducks escape to the second pond forced the falcon to put in extra flying time. With the mid-30s temperature and the slight breeze, Isabella tired from the extended flight.
“She got out of breath so it made her want to quit,” Leslie said. “We left her on the wing too long over here,” pointing to the second pond.
The hunt ended, with the gray day fading to darkness. Leslie, however, knew the afternoon was more important than bringing home a duck.
Although Isabella caught nine ducks during the current season, the number wasn’t important. With falconry, the tangible reward is hit or miss.
“Most of the time, it’s a one-duck deal. Either you catch it or you miss it; there’s not much else,” Leslie said.
Leslie has to believe Isabella will return to him. The two have a strained relationship based on Isabella’s feeding habits.
“All the training is all about reward; there’s no social aspect,” he said. “If she’s not hungry, she’s just going to fly off. There’s a range of weight — she can be kinda fat and still perform, but she may not catch a duck.
“If she gets a little heavier than that, she can just fly off. And there’s no ’Bad falcon,’ no punishment. “They are what they are. They are very aloof. But if you reward them in such a way and build their confidence, it’s amazing how you can train them,” he said.
Leslie’s love falconry began during his years at the University of Mississippi.
“I don’t know how many hawks I’ve had,” he said. “I had a Harris’ hawk and a red tail back in my early days,” he said. “The longest I had flown a falcon before her was five years.“
Leslie changed to smaller falcons to catch doves.
“I’ve had (Isabella) the longest; this is her fifth season,” he said. “I don’t think I could lose her unless it’s just a fluke because she really knows what to do now.“
Falconry continues in other countries, especially in Scotland. Falcons chase grouse over pointers and setters, Leslie said.
“Since the advent of gunpowder and firearms, it fell out of favor,” he said. “But there’s always been some devotees to it over the centuries.“
After dental school, Leslie stayed with falcons, but changed his training method.
“I’ve flown longwings or falcons probably for the last 15 years exclusively. But it wasn’t until about six or seven years ago that I started adopting a technique that a lot of the guys out West and up in Missouri and the Plains states where they train the bird to a balloon or a kite.
“That’s made all the difference because in our part of the country, there’s forests everywhere. “Even when there’s open land, if the falcon goes over that tree line, you don’t which way they went,” he said.
Leslie uses pigeons in his training, citing the method by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen of the Holy Roman Empire in about 1250. From then to the 20th century, books have relied on using pigeons for training birds.
Teaching Isabella to hunt ducks was delicate, considering falcons don’t eat ducks naturally, Leslie said.
“Ducks, (falcons) don’t generally like as a first priority,” he said. “They mainly like gallinaceous birds, like pheasants who have a rapid wing beat, sharp-tailed grouse or quail. A duck doesn’t fly like that.
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