Before there were guns,
there were falcons. A much more organic way to hunt, birds of prey
are sleek and graceful killers. We were invited to Nick Powers’
secret lair, Villa Scorpio, to have a viewing of his new bird. Pre-interview
antics included me getting cornered in the cage by the falcon and
desperately trying to remember how Nick Powers had said to use the
glove to defend myself. After my less than graceful escape, Nick
Powers arrived with a chicken head for the falcon, and the interview
began:
La Jerga: What kind of bird is that?
Nick Powers: He is a Crested Caracara (Polyborus
plancus). He has a pretty wide range, from about the north part
of Texas to Southern Argentina.
At this point, Beaker, as the falcon is known, has begun to astound
us all with his particular style for eating a chicken head.
 LJ:
Do they normally feed on chickens?
Nick Powers: Chicken is probably like a delicacy.
They pretty much go for anything they can take. Reptiles, you know,
lizards and small snakes. They also scavenge; you will see them
on road kill.
Beaker: Cackle.
Nick Powers: He is a fairly average flyer as far
as falcons go. A lot of falcons can take birds in the air. But he
would not be capable. He would go after mammals. He can get large
rabbits. I was in this falconing school in England, and they would
take a ferret and put it down a rabbit hole, and all these rabbits
come popping up. They would have their hawk, and they got 19 rabbits
in two hours doing that.
LJ: One hawk?
Nick Powers: One hawk. There is actually a thing
called the ferret finder, it is a little radioactive collar you
put on the ferret so it will beep. Then you can shovel them out,
because sometimes they won't come out. And it would be a shame to
cut your ferret in half with a shovel.
LJ: Yeah, and so how did you come about this bird?
Nick Powers: This bird is an orphan bird. He was
a downy, and I had never had a bird of prey before. But I was interested
in falconing. I read some books on it, and I got him. I then went
and enrolled in this class in the English School of Falconry. I
learned general husbandry, general hunting tactics, training, and
basic medical procedures. Like how to file their beaks down.
LJ: Why would you file the beak down?
Nick Powers: They just grow, and in the wild they
find rocks or pebbles and chew on that. They grow like fingernails.
He's not that bad, he has some rocks here to chew on.
At this point, Beaker decides that it was time to show the prowess
of the beak by skillfully eating the eyeballs of the chicken head.
LJ: Do they like that?
Nick Powers: Eyeballs?
LJ: No, do they like having their beak shaved?
Nick Powers: Oh no, they don't like that at all.
LJ: How do you go about that?
Nick Powers: You come up behind them, and you snatch
them up in a towel. Then you wrap them up really tight till they
feel like a crushed football. It helps to have someone else hold
the bird. Then you put a pencil (sideways) in their mouths, and
start to file their beak.
LJ: How old is this bird?
Nick Powers: This bird is just one year old. You
can see a lot of feathers are tattered and some are pristine, he's
getting his new feathers in. I don't fly him right now, not until
he gets all his new ones in. That should be in August.
Beaker: Cackle.
Nick Powers: I also have a little digital scale
to weigh him. He weighs 1.1 kilos.
LJ: What is his ideal flying weight?
Nick Powers: About 900 grams.
LJ: So has he gotten you yet?
Nick Powers: Gotten me? He put a talon all the
way through my arm. But these talons are made to crush the ribcages
of rabbits in the wild. It wasn't through the bone, but up here
on the forearm. And he did that for something like, 'hey, give me
my chicken bone back.'
Beaker: Cackle.
LJ: So how long till he gets into the killing business?
Nick Powers: August.
LJ: Will he be able to take pigeons out?
Nick Powers: No, because pigeons are actually really
good flyers, and he wouldn't have the flight capability. Some falcons
can, but usually they are really hard game unless you sneak up on
them. I see hawks hunting off that church (gesturing to Capilla
de las Monjas across from the terrace roof of Villa Scorpio). The
hawks stand on top of the twelve apostles' heads. Pigeons like to
sleep on the balcony below. The hawks will jump up and dive, and
boom, all you see is a puff of feathers. That's usually from November
through March, the rest of the time they spend in the states. If
you go out on a winter’s day in San Miguel, you can see hawks
and buzzards just circling all the time. You don't see them at all
in the summer.
LJ: He doesn't mind sticking around?
Nick Powers: He doesn't have much choice, does
he? I’ve got some funny stories about him. I have lost him
three times in town. I've been careless, I've had him off the leash.
I was playing with him on the roof and he just took off. He has
to be able to see me, and he landed behind a wall. I searched and
searched. I didn't want to ring a bell and tell them 'I think my
eagle is in your courtyard.' But I have always put an ad on the
radio. And 3-for-3, I have gotten a call back, "We have your
hawk. He's in the courtyard eating chips." He has become so
accustomed to people, he's not scared of them at all. In fact, he's
not even afraid of dogs. That is scary to think about when I lose
him.
LJ: I like his haircut though.
Nick Powers: Yeah, that's the crest.
At this point Beaker has started to move off the glove onto the
unprotected arm of one Nick Powers.
Nick Powers: They always try to go to the highest
point, so you end up having a bird on your head a lot.
LJ: Is that why they hold their hands over their
heads?
Nick Powers: When you are holding him, you trying
keep a little angle so he keeps climbing to the top of the glove.
 LJ:
So what is a downy?
Nick Powers: He was a foundling. I found him in
a little town past Pozos. There was this boy, and he had Beaker
in a plastic bag. I thought, well, he's probably not going to make
it so I traded him a couple of twenty peso bills. When I was at
this falconry school, people told me that bird would have cost $1,500.00
dollars. They couldn't believe I had bought a Crested Caracara for
six bucks. I am not a big fan of taking wild things from the wild,
but there was no way of getting him back. I did first contact a
Raptor Rescue place in Querétero. I took him over there,
and they said he was too far gone from the nest to be able to reintroduce
back. So they suggested as a secondary option, that I could try
and train him. They said, 'Well, you can try.' Actually, one of
things about falconing in Mexico, is that it co-evolved in Mexico
in pre-Columbian times. The Aztecs had trained birds of prey. It's
found a lot of support now in the UK, because the gun regulations
are so strict there. A lot more people are taking up falconing,
and there are a lot of little cottage industries popping up.
LJ: Where was it that you took the course there?
Nick Powers: Biggleswade, about forty miles north
of London. They had like 300 birds of prey. They had about five
people who were professional falconers.
LJ: Could you try out all the birds?
Nick Powers: I flew Peregrine falcons, Harris hawks,
Atlanta sakers, which is a hybrid falcon. That is something new
they are doing in falconing, they are making new species. They hybridized
an Atlanta falcon with a saker falcon. Now they have birds that
never existed in the wild.
LJ: Wow, how did they get the birds to agree to
that?
Find out the answer to this mystery and more in August with Episode
2: Hawk Attack Now!
Nick Powers is also looking for anyone else who has a bird of prey.
He can be reached at his lair, Villa Scorpio. Just ask for Nick
Powers, The Falconer. |
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