Early December of last year, I had run through a parking lot next to a lake, just to see what was moving. I had just spotted an Osprey in that same place a week before, migrating through. You never know.
Cold and breezy, not much was happening over the lake, so I moved north and noticed some people walking through the fields adjacent to the lake. A group, walking as if it were a bird hunt, but as I zoomed in with the camera it was the opposite. It was a group of falconers, and their birds were doing the hunting, and black-tailed jack rabbits were scrambling!
Falconer/falcon relationship
I eased into a position to shoot a few shots of their work, both falconers and birds. Two hawks chased a jack rabbit right by the truck and into the brush…rabbit survived that one. The group gathered at my truck and I got to meet some sharp people. I learned about falconry, and I took a few portrait shots of one of their birds…a Harris hawk. Brian Wood, in the group, is a Director of the Tucson AZ chapter of the North America Falconers Association (NAFA), and has helped me identify hawks several times.
These birds have hunting in their DNA, and their handlers make their hunts more successful…what Brian says is the core of the falcon/falconer relationship. Amazing to have these moments and shots in the LBK.