Class News
Russell Sunshine '64 writes about hawks
Kat, David, and Mac
A Pacific Grove Story With Wings
by Russell Sunshine
A chapter from Life in Pacific Grove, California Vol.2
The first screech pierces the air above the Grove Market’s barrel roof. A second gull hopping on a Fandango chimney relays the alarm. A third triangulates the perceived threat from the dance studio down the Sixteenth Street slope. Far below in the municipal parking lot, Kat remains calm and confident, not deigning to acknowledge the agitated chorus. The only motion is the flapping sentinel wings reflected in her gleaming eye. Without a flinch, her menacing presence is inflicting the desired disruption.
A Featherweight Flying Machine
Kat is a Harris’s hawk, a splendid creature who doesn’t reveal her full beauty at first glance. When she’s at rest, like this morning, you notice a dominant dark-chocolate tone covering her head, neck, chest, wings, and back. Against this background, her first mark of distinction is a butter-yellow ring encircling each eye. That same yellow saturates her long, obviously powerful legs and huge clutching claws. Next you spot russet red, decorating scalloped epaulettes from her shoulders halfway down broad wings, as well as curiously delicate feathered ankle puffs. During takeoff or when airborne, she would expose a rich creamy-white belly and rump, as well as a magnificent fanning tail, with alternating horizontal bands of cream and ebony.
In the parking lot, Kat balances without strain on her partner’s extended left forearm. Like all other raptors, Harris’s hawks are surprisingly lightweight. (A massive Golden Eagle might look like a 20-pound hulk but tip the scales at a mere five pounds.) Despite Kat’s 23-inch length and 46-inch wingspan, she weighs only two pounds. “Featherweight” is an apt description for a hollow-boned flying machine capable of breathtaking aerobatics.
David stands as calm and motionless as his hawk, surrounded by panicked gulls. His appearance is more muted than his partner’s. His olive-green uniform and matching cap sport logos from his company, Green Fields Falconry. Attached to his chest are the tools of his trade: hawk hoods and a whistle, a leash, swivels and clamps. A black leather gauntlet reaching to David’s elbow doubles as landing pad and perching platform. Over his right shoulder, he’s hitched a weathered canvas carryall containing all he and Kat will need for this morning’s patrol — trail snacks for her, spare parts for her tethers, bottled water and raptor-photo business cards for him.
David Lindenthal-Cox is one of only a relative handful of master falconers in all of California. How did this mild-mannered Pagrovian ascend to the top echelon of an ancient guild? Like many an epic quest, this one began at a kitchen table.
It All Started in Third Grade
In 2009, David and his wife Jan were struggling to energize their drifting eldest child. Fourteen-year-old Mackenzie, Mac for short, seemed equally immune to the attractions of schoolwork or sports, surf or skateboards.
David sat down with his son for an awkward heart-to-heart.
“Mac, tell me what turns you on. Tell me your dream. Your mother and I want to help you go for it.”
Mac held back for three long beats. “I want to be a falconer.”
Images of Sherwood Forest and Hogwarts flashed across David’s mental screen. “A what?”
“A falconer.”
“Ooookay. But where’s this coming from?”
“Third grade.”
Mac committed to taking the plunge. “A falconer visited my class at Forest Grove. When I was eight. She carried a huge Golden Eagle on a leather glove. It was awesome.” The teen’s tense jaw began to relax. “I didn’t want to show my excitement in case the other kids made fun of me. But I made myself a promise. Someday, that would be me.”
Mac later told his dad that the school-visit inspiration had been reinforced by reading and rereading two iconic books. My Side of the Mountain followed a runaway boy as he bonded in the forest with a magical peregrine falcon. Wesley the Owl celebrated the real-life relationship forged by Cal Tech biologist Stacey O’Brien with an injured barn owl.
David had gotten more than he’d bargained for. But he was moved by his son’s secret passion. Even though they hadn’t a clue where this might lead, he and Jan promised to help Mac get started.
For Christmas, the parents thrilled their son with a copy of the California Hawking Club’s Apprentice Study Guide. When Mac grew intimidated by this manual’s technical vocabulary, David said “Let’s look at this together.” After three pages came the father’s second surprise. “The hook was in my mouth,” he recalls. Two pilgrims would embark on this falconry quest.
Becoming a licensed falconer in California is not for the impulsive or impatient. It’s a long slog with multiple challenges to hurdle. Of 300 enthusiasts who start the process each year, only 30 stay the course. In 2018, there are only 700 active falconers in the state out of a population approaching 40 million.
California falconry is regulated and managed by the State Department of Fish & Wildlife (F&W). Headquartered in Sacramento, F&W maintains a Northern Regional Office in Fresno and a Peninsula Field Office at Ryan Ranch. The department administers the falconry candidates’ annual written entry test and awards apprentice licenses to the successful test-takers. General licenses follow after successful completion of a two-year apprenticeship. Masters’ licenses are granted after five more years of demonstrated steady practice.
Actual supervision of apprentices’ progress is conducted by one-on-one sponsors. These general falconers and master falconers are independent volunteers, but they submit written progress reports to the department that are prerequisites for apprentices to advance. A sponsor guides his or her apprentice in constructing a mews (hawk house) to required specifications and in procuring and mastering required falconry equipment. An apprentice is also required to successfully trap, train, and re-release a wild red-tailed hawk or kestrel, one per year, during the two-year apprenticeship.
The California Hawking Club (CHC) has no official role in managing falconry in the state. But the club is actively involved in an unofficial, supporting capacity. CHC experts testify on pending regulations. Club publications inform the public about the sport and assist candidates to prepare for the F&W entry exam. The club also helps apprentices attract qualified sponsors, advocates best practices, and hosts periodic meetings and competitions.
David and Mac attacked this credentialing marathon as a tandem team. Prepping for and passing the threshold test at Ryan Ranch took them eight intermittent months of effort. After several false starts attempting to secure an accessible and compatible sponsor, apprenticeship consumed another demanding two years, including steady practice trapping, training, and re-releasing wild birds. Perfecting their falconry skills until they qualified for master-falconer status added five years to that calendar. The pair’s licenses were only admission tickets. David describes falconry, with deep pleasure, as “life-long learning.”
Most of that learning has been hands-on and experiential, refining David and Mac’s communication with wary, independent birds of prey. But much of the curriculum has also been historical and cultural, absorbing the accumulated wisdom of an ancient international fellowship. Falconry is one of the world’s oldest sports. Even its definition springs from the past: the taking of wild quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of a trained raptor. The earliest references date from Mesopotamia in 2000 BCE.
Hunting with raptors was apparently introduced into Europe by Central Asian Huns invading the collapsing Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. A major boost came in the mid-13th century when a German king imported and had translated an Arab how-to falconry manual. During the Middle Ages, falconry captured the fancy of courtiers from Europe through Arabia and Persia to the Mongol Empire, Korea, and Japan. European enthusiasm peaked in the 17th century, soon overtaken by hunting with firearms. Falconry is currently enjoying its greatest resurgence in 300 years in the US and UK, spurred largely by successful captive breeding and microtelemetry. Hawks, falcons and, less commonly, eagles and owls are the raptors normally flown in America.
Even in hang-loose California, falconry is sustained by a hierarchical order of devotees, with apprentices reporting to masters, patiently working their way through initiation. The similarity to medieval tradesmen’s guilds is no accident. The list below offers a brief taste of falconry’s exotic and evocative vocabulary, with strong linguistic roots stretching back 700 or more years but still very much in modern usage. Say these marvelous words below out loud. Several have French or Anglo-Saxon origins, but “yarak” stems from “readiness” in ancient Persian.
Although the California Hawking Club is a relaxed association of widely dispersed and independent members, its leaders clearly consider themselves stewards of a venerable tradition. Far more important for novices than learning antique verbs is absorbing a principled Code of Conduct. Listen to the values implicit in these excerpts from new members’ orientation:
- Falconry is a one-on-one relationship based on trust.
- Trained raptors remain wild and are capable of returning to the wild at any time they are flown. They often do.
- Birds of prey are trained entirely by reward and the bird’s natural response to food is the key. No punishment is ever used, nor is it effective. While dogs will respond to the tone of a voice and horses to the touch of the reins, raptors have no desire to please their human companions.
- Wise falconers come to realize that they don’t train the birds to hunt. Hawks and falcons are, by nature, successful hunters. ... Hawks chase, capture, and kill their prey with no training from their human companions. The training in falconry involves having the hawk learn to accept the human as an aid to more successful hunting and to a more dependable food supply.
- A skilled, experienced falconer encourages the bird to develop its skills and to improve with each flight. Time, patience, and persistence are necessary in order for the falconer to be a good hunting partner to the bird. The reward is the emotional satisfaction of being close to a wild creature as it successfully follows its instincts. The falcon or hawk allows the falconer to be close to the flight, the chase, the capture of the prey. The raptors can travel when they choose, but they choose to stay. Walking the edge of freedom and flight can be a beautiful experience.
This is the respectful path the P.G. father and son dedicated themselves to following. If the discipline’s bedrock restraint resonates with Zen, it may be no coincidence. Much of falconry’s ethos was honed in the East.
There’s a New ‘Kat’ in Town
Harris’s hawks are among the most prized and popular raptors in American falconry. Keenly intelligent and a quick study, the breed consistently demonstrates hunting enthusiasm and stamina. It achieves its greatest hunting potential when given as much freedom as possible. These hawks are unusually sociable, getting along with other birds and even famously hunting cooperatively in pairs or packs. They are equally appreciated for their relaxed disposition with humans, accepting them as hunting partners rather than rivals.
Their native habitats include a northern range in Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, and a southern range in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. They favor dry desert domains. Known since at least the early 1800s, they were painted by John James Audubon and named for his patron, Edward Harris. Diminishing in the wild, they’ve been successfully bred in captivity since the 1960s.
Prior to acquiring Kat, David had worked with Kit, another Harris’s hawk. Although seriously hampered by the loss of an eye, Kit had pluck and persistence and David had been hugely impressed. Father and son were eager to replicate this encouraging debut.
David and Jan purchased Kat as a present for Mac in 2012. Their source was a federally licensed Tennessee breeder. The bird was a 14-week-old, fully grown chick, completely untrained, with no prior human interaction (and thus, implicitly, no prior bad habits.) She was shipped to San Jose International Airport where David and Mac picked her up. David was distressed to discover that the chick arrived underweight, potentially susceptible to disease. But his attitude promptly changed as he and Mac got to work.
First came “manning,” getting Kat used to human contact, demonstrating that her falconers presented no threat. David and Mac would take turns sitting quietly with the chick for hours, periodically offering tasty tidbits. When Kat started “talking” on Day 3, this was an unwelcome sign she was feeling hunger. So they brought her weight up by slightly increasing her intake.
Falconers name their birds to facilitate initial training. The name is an attention-getter, repeatedly called by the falconer, accompanied by a blown whistle, to train the bird to fly to the gauntlet. David and Mac used a creance, a long cord attached to Kat’s leash, to let her practice flying free to the gauntlet. Next David got her attention with a shushing noise, pointing at tidbits dropped to the ground to begin associating the ground with food and game in preparation for hunting. He’d then call her back up to the glove. Repeat, repeat, until novelty became normal.
The most crucial training before flying free was to wed the bird to the lure. A simple sliced tennis ball attached to a seven-foot rope, the lure’s irresistible appeal stemmed from the generous meal packed inside. The bird was rewarded with access to this feast whenever the lure was whirled above the falconer’s head. This association became so automatic that later in the field, merely lifting the lure from the falconer’s field pack and beginning its circular sweep sufficed to bring the hawk winging back without hesitation from any distance or terrain. This crude mechanical summons could prove an invaluable back-up if the falconer lost sight of the bird or its transmitter were malfunctioning.
As a refinement on preparations for hunting, Kat also learned to fly to the T-perch. David constructed this prop from extendable aluminum tubes, topped by a horizontal bar wrapped in thick industrial carpeting. In the field, Kat would sit on this elevated stand, eight feet above David’s head, to survey the surrounding terrain.
The sequenced training program proceeded at a rapid pace. Fieldwork began by teaching Kat to be comfortable hopping into and traveling inside her personal transport box in the rear of the van, made attractive by more tidbits to create this positive association. In the field, she was free-flying by Day 10. As training on collaborative hunting began, the hawk was invited to mount the T-perch and David carried it above his head. Kat watched as David’s dogs and assistants flushed wild game. Following her natural instincts, Kat chased the first game spooked by the crew. Almost immediately, she was successful. To David’s delight, only 14 days had elapsed since the hawk’s arrival in California.
During Kat’s early years in the mews, David and Mac shared raptor-rearing duties. David’s family role as a stay-at home dad gave him time and proximity to help care for multiple birds. He also carried principal parenting responsibilities while Jan commuted to her Bay-Area executive position. More recently, as the couple’s three children matured and began pursuing higher education away from P.G., David’s daily parenting schedule began to lighten up. He increasingly contemplated returning to work. What better solution than working with birds? With Jan’s encouragement and support, he founded Green Fields Falconry. The new firm was well-placed to compete when Pacific Grove’s government invited gull-abatement bids.
Those Swooping and Pooping Invaders
Like many shoreline communities, Pacific Grove has a gull-invasion problem that only seems to get worse. Western gulls from the adjacent Monterey Bay have increasingly been attracted to two magnets in P.G.’s downtown business district: an abundance of tasty garbage generated by restaurants, markets, and littering tourists; and a compact collection of horizontal rooftops on commercial buildings, ideal for easy nest construction.
Within limits, gulls are a natural and handsome component of the local habitat. Beyond those limits, they become a serious public nuisance. Anyone victimized by a stinky, sticky, slippery projectile of gull poop on their head or car window doesn’t need to be convinced of this unpleasantness. More threatening is a dive-bombing attack by an aggressive nesting gull. Scavenging dumpsters and spreading garbage cause additional threats to public health. For years, a loud chorus of complaints has been raised by downtown merchants and innkeepers, residents and tourists, united in urging City Hall to do something about these “obnoxious invaders.”
Milas Smith, Environmental Programs Manager in the Department of Public Works, is P.G.’s point man on gull abatement. He’s acutely aware of the whole list of gull misdemeanors. But his candidate for worst offense is somewhat surprising. “Most people don’t realize it, but downtown gulls’ greatest harm is polluting bay water quality.” The central business district is almost entirely paved and sloping. Few unpaved plots remain to absorb bird waste. Contiguous streets and parking lots combine to form an uninterrupted, impenetrable surface. When periodic rains sluice those streets, all that accumulated gull poop flushes into storm drains that empty into bay shallows. The acidic wastes are like concentrated pesticides, endangering and exterminating sensitive marine life. That impact is exacerbated when the gulls feed on human garbage instead of their normal shoreline diet, altering the biochemistry of their waste. From the municipal government’s perspective, the gulls per se are not the problem; it’s their unnatural urban behavior. Screeching squawks are annoying but tolerable. Stained car hoods are nasty but washable. Destroying a fragile ecosystem is another order of magnitude of disruption. P.G. feels compelled to defend itself.
From the outset, City Hall’s gull-deterrence strategy has been deliberately non-violent and non-toxic. The endgame was not to totally defeat or drive away all occupying gulls. The more modest objective was to raise the ante, sufficiently disrupting the gulls so that most would elect to nest closer to their traditional shoreline sites, retreating from their downtown encroachment.
The authorities got started by requiring downtown restauranteurs and merchants to adopt gull-proof garbage containers. Anti-littering public education and enforcement were other early, economical, and uncontroversial interventions. But the bottom line didn’t change; the gulls hadn’t gotten the memo. On the contrary, their numbers swelled as marine currents brought an abundance of fish and squid into shallows a few short blocks from downtown. Fat gulls were producing more offspring.
At this juncture, P.G. benefited from the experience and insights of a new city manager, Ben Harvey. In his previous posting in the harbor town of Avalon on Catalina Island, Mr. Harvey had presided over a successful but different gull-abatement strategy — using falconers and their raptor partners to disrupt and discourage nesting gulls. Relying on a natural antipathy between predators and prey, hawk patrols in Avalon deterred gulls from nesting without killing them. Parallel initiatives have been utilized nationwide at airports and landfills, and in central California’s vineyards and berry farms.
Pacific Grove launched its falconer program in 2014. After a brief hiatus necessitated by budgetary constraints, the City Council re-endorsed this approach in 2017, this time committing to a sustained five-year hawk-patrol campaign. Bids were invited for the two-month, April-May, gull-nesting season. A contract was awarded to Green Fields Falconry and David and Kat were ready to strut their stuff.
Two Cops on the Beat
The partners start their walking rounds at 7:00am. With breaks for snacks and David’s lunch, he frequently puts in 10-hour days. To spare the bird comparable fatigue, he swaps out Kat with other raptors from the mews. Patrolling continues seven days a week during April and May. There’s no contractual requirement for such long hours. David is following a schedule established by his predecessor from the campaign’s 2014 phase and now expected by the city. After an initial 21-day solo stretch, the father is delighted when his son returns from a semester abroad to help spell him on the beat.
David keeps Kat hoodless on patrol until she grows tired and begins flapping. Then he slips the hood on to calm and reassure her. She seems to prefer standing more than walking, misinterpreting forward movement as an invitation to fly.
Towards the end of his two-month engagement, David breaks the routine by patrolling in the morning, reserving afternoons for another of his required tasks: dismantling rooftop gull nests. Western gulls like to nest in clusters. Lighthouse Cinema sometimes hosts eight nests in a row. The gulls aren’t great architects, but they’re opportunistic, determined builders. They cobble together their nests from any locally available materials they can scavenge. Pine needles, surprisingly, are a favorite component. Plastic bags are seldom neglected. The gulls work overnight, incredibly quickly. After Mac cleared one roof by 6:00pm, David found a new, complete nest in the exact same spot at 8:00am the following morning. Local gulls nest from April through June. The last of these months is mostly off-limits for dismantling, since federal law prohibits disturbing any nest once eggs have been laid. So April and May are the core months for the falconers’ interventions.
David and Kat vary their patrol routes so their target gulls never get comfortable with a detected pattern. The objective is to keep the gulls constantly rattled and on edge, alarmed by the presence of a natural enemy. David and Mac reinforce this impression by tethering plastic raptor kites above downtown rooftops. But the wily gulls quickly distinguish store-bought replicas from the real thing.
Some gull-abatement falconers escalate their campaigns by freeing and flying their raptors downtown. By directly harassing the nesting gulls, their hawks can definitely make the environment less hospitable. But David has taken a deliberate decision to keep Kat and his other patrolling raptors on their leashes. He doesn’t want to initiate or provoke unnecessary violence, risking a reversal of public support for the city’s program. Hawks could get injured pursuing gulls under cars. Motorists wouldn’t tolerate feathered bodies crashing onto their hoods. And pursued gulls could gang up in defensive posses, making for serious aerial combat. Disrupt and deter: that’s his low-key approach. And it works. Dramatically. Within seconds of her arrival, Kat on-the-glove alarms an entire neighborhood of settling gulls.
Following Kat and David along the street creates a vertical awareness of downtown dynamics. Gulls are everywhere, on every building in every block, occupying an elevated stratum above mostly preoccupied pedestrians. The winged upper-story squatters audibly notice, resent, and resist the patrolling pair. When the raptor is on David’s arm, the partners are regularly dive-bombed by defensive gulls. The most aggressive pull out of their dives with webbed feet extended in a menacing threat display. Even when the falconer walks without his bird, the gulls have come to associate him with the enemy, retreating over rooflines to take refuge out of sight.
People too come to notice the cops on their beat. Kids almost always take the lead.
One wide-eyed lad is rushed past the pair by an impatient, distracted chaperone. “I like your hawk,” the off-balance boy manages to blurt. “It’s one of my favorite things.” Kat is obviously the major drawing card. But David’s gentle charisma also exerts subtle magnetism. He dissuades would-be touchers and calms anxious parents by softly declaring, “Her name is Kat.” The families who linger get a mini-seminar on raptors and falconry. David has given this talk a hundred times. His gift is to make each family believe it’s the first. The encounters range from poignant to hilarious, but they always raise sidewalk energy. A sleepy two-year-old in a pram ignores his kneeling mother. “Look, Tommy! Look at the bird. The big bird. See him flap his wings.”
And to David, “Him? Her?”
Then again to her son, “Look at her. Isn’t she beautiful?”
After the disappointed mother stands up, apologizes for her disinterested toddler, and backs his pram away, Tommy suddenly finds his focus and takes in Kat with a radiant, ear-to-ear smile. Still silent, he extends his yellow miniature backhoe as an offering to his new feathered friend.
Seven-year-old Tessa steps into the pair’s path as they turn down 17th Street. “I want a selfie with Kat to post on my Facebook page.”
“No problem, Tessa.” David recognizes the zeal of a future media producer.
“But not with you.” Still in second grade, she’s ruthless about casting.
“I’m afraid I come with the bird.”
“I want Big John instead.”
“The Bank of America security guard? I think his employer doesn’t allow him to pose for photos in uniform.”
Tessa crosses her arms. “But I’ll get more Likes!”
On another ambulatory morning, David’s taking a coffee break while Kat rests in the van. A curly-haired 50-something man with a much younger female companion interrupts the falconer’s curbside latte.
“You remember me. I told you my San Jose girlfriend was coming to town, and I wanted her to meet your hawk.”
David smiles politely, wiping foam from his upper lip. “Well, here she is!” the thwarted boyfriend persists. “Where’s your bird? You didn’t warn me about no-shows!” Two British tourists look up from their guidebook, admiring Kat on her gauntlet. Their spontaneous dialogue echoes Gilbert and Sullivan patter.
“You have gulls. We had a carpet of pigeons in Trafalgar Square.”
“Nowhere to step. Without slipping.”
“But not anymore. Not anymore. We mustered the 6:00am falconers.”
“Bye-bye, pigeons!”
An appreciative Pebble Beach matron stops her husband to shake David’s hand. “Thank you, thank you, for what you’re doing with the gulls. They covered the roof of our summer place. The skylight was solid white. With … can I say it, Herman?” Then plunging ahead at her husband’s nod, “With bird crap!”
Of course, this being Pacific Grove, not everyone shares the proponents’ enthusiasm for the city’s gull-abatement campaign. One take-no-prisoners critic screeches up in her BMW as David is gathering his kit for the morning’s rounds.
“When are you leaving?”
“Right now, ma’am, as soon as I get Kat out of her box.” “Not leaving your van! I mean leaving Pacific Grove!”
“Well, I live here. My family has no plans to move.” And trying to keep things civil, “If you mean when does our abatement work wind up, it’s on May 27, unless the city extends our contract.”
“Well, it can’t come too soon!”
“Why do you feel that way?”
“Because you’re scaring the gulls away.”
“Yes, that’s the point.”
“But it’s not fair. They’ve a perfect right to live here too!”
“Ma’am, the city feels the gulls are causing public-health and water-quality problems. Discouraging them with raptors is natural pest control.”
Speeding away, but not before spitting the last word: “There’s nothing natural about you or your bird!”
Mac too encounters occasional hostility, this one of the male persuasion. “You’re such a joke! Five minutes after you pass by, the gulls will be back. They’re way smarter than you are.”
“We don’t want to exterminate them. Only persuade them to return to more natural nesting sites closer to shore.”
“Good luck with that! No French fries at the shore!”
“Yep. But the new dumpsters are gull-proof. That’ll help keep the fries off the pavement. But thanks for speaking up.”
Sour grapes notwithstanding, the falconers receive overwhelmingly positive public support. David says that encouragement and the wide eyes of children heal the patrollers’ fatigue during 10-hour days.
Soaring in Her Native Element
At dawn in the mews, Kat followed her uncanny pattern, somehow figuring out it was a free-flying day. When David dallied, attending to the other birds, she hopped off her perch, picked up the ring on her travelling tether, and dropped it onto his shoe. As soon as he opened the van’s back door, she jumped from his gauntlet into her traveling box.
Now at their destination, David slides the T-perch out of the parked van, extending and locking the hollow pole’s nesting segments. The wind is gusting as he eases the hawk out of her box. Conditions aren’t improved by a furious crow hovering just above the van, possibly defending a nest. The crow launches an unceasing barrage of protests, soon reinforced by a series of aerial feints and sallies.
Kat is nervous on David’s arm, uncharacteristically resisting the hood that he slips over her head to reduce her anxiety. With his right hand, he fits the tiny transmitter onto the back panel of the monofilament harness that encircles her torso.
David relishes these quiet outings. Frequent flying is essential for Kat’s health and conditioning. But he too breathes deeper in open spaces. He never loses concentration, swapping out field jesses for transport jesses, then double-checking the leads between Kat’s anklets and his glove. Free-flying is the order of the day, but only when safely away from hikers, bikers, and dog-walkers. He hoists the light pole and off they go.
This narrow coastal strip is a rich eco-niche hiding in plain sight. Motorists racing by on the freeway glimpse only beige flats. But on foot, the flats dip and swirl, densely covered with knee-high brush. In early summer, the wildflowers are spectacular. California poppies spread electric-orange carpets. Indian paintbrush adds a vertical contrasting crimson. Pale-yellow lupine climbs six feet tall. Up close, boring dunes become sheer hundred-foot hills, too soft to climb but sculptural in their pristine slopes.
Once David and Kat arrive out in the fields, the irritated crow departs and off comes the hawk’s hood. Her first sorties are tentative, as if testing her wings and the winds. The hawk cruises on short hops, alighting on bushes and canvassing the terrain. David summons her back to the perch with shrill whistles and loud barks: “Whoa, Kat! Whoa!” After a while, she seems to visibly relax, enjoying the freedom and the uplifting currents.
The route and rhythm of this procession reveal an unconventional dynamic. This is not man hunting game with a shotgun and a hound. This is hawk hunting game with a supporting human ground crew. Kat is obviously taking the lead. She looks back. She welcomes the beaters and the elevating perch. But this is her show. (Mac later comments with amusement that this hierarchy mirrors a natural pecking order. When Harris’s hawks hunt in packs, the subordinate juveniles are relegated to flushing game by flying through and just over brush, while the dominant adults stay elevated to pounce on rousted prey.) No game yet, despite paths beaten by David’s guests. An occasional rabbit is momentarily sighted but Kat shows no interest. And then she’s gone, out of sight around the curve of the largest seashore dune.
David is unconcerned. He knows his hawk is out for a romp. She’ll come back when good and ready. Modern technology keeps the partners in touch. Kat’s transmitter signals a satellite that relays data to David’s receiver. The small box forwards digital information to his iPhone. A sharp multicolored grid on the phone’s screen pinpoints Kat’s stationary location on the far side of the sandy hill.
Soon she reappears on the ridgeline, checking out her team. Now fully engaged, she embarks on a series of patrolling sweeps, eyeing any movements that betray sand-hugging prey.
When she’s ready to strike, the closure is swift and sure. From a bush-top launching pad, the hawk rockets silently, skimming dense brush. One hundred lateral feet, two gliding seconds, and the predator nails her target.
By the time David reaches the spot, Kat is already pecking at the rabbit carcass. The falconer squats and twists the rabbit’s neck to make doubly sure it doesn’t suffer. After initially mantling, with broad wings extended, to defend her prey against his intrusion, the hawk accepts his assistance. David allows his partner to eat her fill satisfying her natural instincts. “Let it lie” is the falconers’ protocol, so David lures Kat away from her kill, leaving the prey’s remains to nourish wild scavengers.
Some falconers relish the hunt so much that they keep their hawks in the field for multiple kills. David prefers one-and-done, keeping Kat fit and in form without turning soaring into slaughter.
The walk back seems much shorter. The blossoms look brighter. The hawk has exercised in her natural element. At the van, Kat hops into her box with a contented “Nunnhh.” On a branch above, even the territorial crow is half-subdued.
Home in the mews, David rinses his hawk with a fine spray, like a gentle rain shower. The moisture sluices dust and grime off of Kat’s whole body, from cap to claws.
She seems to like the cleansing and makes no move to shift to the dry corner of her pen. But her eye is on her bathtub, inviting, shimmering, and three inches deep. One scoot and she’s perched on the rim. Another unhesitating leap and she’s immersed to the waist. Almost awkwardly, Kat begins a rhythmic rocking. First she dips her head. Then back onto her fan-spread tail. Again, and again, like a teeter-totter, tipping back and forth with a shifting center of gravity. It’s a private, uninhibited soak. Then up onto an elevated perch for preening, broad wings stretched and suspended to dry the tips.
Flying Ahead to the Future
Two years into its five-year gull abatement program, Pacific Grove is well-satisfied with interim progress.
Quantitative success is difficult to confirm, but the city is assiduously tracking the decline in gull misbehavior complaints. For the municipal government, David and Kat’s downtown patrols are high-profile and low-cost — good PR and frugal fiscal management. The authorities have noted pedestrians’ evident enthusiasm for sidewalk encounters and seminars. Likewise, the voiced appreciation of merchants and residents for David and Mac’s vigorous nest clearances.
This is not a campaign that will be won in a single annual cycle. It’s better understood as a war of attrition. Gulls are stubborn, savvy, and territorial. The oldest birds are probably too set in their ways to be persuaded not to nest downtown. But younger generations should gradually get the point: roosts closer to shore are less of a hassle, with no nest disrupters and no fearsome hawks. The relocated gulls’ health should also rebound, as they revert to a more normal diet.
David is expanding Green Fields Falconry. As the small enterprise gains momentum, the whole family is getting involved. Mac shares abatement duties with his dad. Elder daughter Maggie handles photography and social media. Wife Jan contributes business-management acumen and moral support. Vegetarian younger daughter Caroline is not thrilled by the half-freezer filled with frozen mice, but she’s proud of her father and brother for their falconry expertise.
The mews is also growing. See the current roster below.
Another Aplomado may be added to the team to help respond to Watsonville farmers’ appeals for raptors to keep starlings and robins from stealing their ripening berries. Free-flying raptors can always get injured or lost on the job. Backups are prudent to honor Green Fields’s contractual commitments to clients.
Classroom visits are another logical sideline. Mac is proof-perfect that a raptor on the arm can be a life-changing encounter for primary schoolers with imagination.
Looking ahead, Mac is preparing for a career as a game warden with California’s State Department of Fish & Wildlife. He’s aware of the arc linking his prospective employer to the agency that hosted a nervous teenager’s Ryan Ranch entry exam a decade ago.
David would never pretend that gull abatement is what sustains his passion for falconry. Abatement engagements perform a public service and help pay the bills. And he genuinely enjoys pedestrian contact, especially with irrepressible kids. But the chief source of his joy is daily interaction with intelligent creatures from other species. This non-verbal, intimate communication has never lost its appeal. David’s partner Kat is now six years of age. Barring her serious injury or chronic infection, they can look forward to spending another 20 years together.
The mild master falconer answers the unasked question. His voice is soft but resolute. “I will always be a falconer.”
Russell Sunshine is the author of Far and Away: True Tales from an International Life.