CLEVELAND. — Roxxy is ready. As apprentice falconer Lisa Fannon attaches a GPS tracker to a strap around one of Roxxy’s legs, the young red-tailed hawk strains to fly away from her perch atop Fannon’s thick leather glove.
A few steps into the woods, Fannon frees Roxxy, and the hunt is on. The hawk, the bells attached to her legs gently chiming, settles on a branch about 20 feet above the ground. Immediately Roxxy begins bobbing her head up and down and peering from side to side. She’s looking for prey.
On this overcast, chilly December day, with intermittent light rain and sleet, Fannon and her two falconer friends, Greg Ames and Buster Brown, are engaged in a sport that dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Monuments erected in the Middle East by the Hittites depict falconry and date back to the 13th century B.C.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
A common misconception is that falconers only train falcons. In fact, any raptor qualifies. Those most commonly used in the southeast are red-tailed hawks, which can be quite aggressive, and Harris’ hawks, which have a calmer demeanor.
“You could say red-tails are like pit bulls and Harris’ hawks are like labs,” Brown said.
In Georgia, there are about 200 licensed falconers, said Brown, who runs Georgia Mountain Falconry. Located in Helen, it offers apprenticeship classes two weekends a year, in January and August. To become a Georgia falconer, you first have to pass the difficult falconry exam administered by the Department of Natural Resources and then be an apprentice, with a sponsor, for two years.
Fannon, a realtor from Dahlonega, took Brown’s course two years ago. “When I saw those birds at the academy, I was totally hooked,” she said.
Fannon becomes a full-fledged falconer in April. She trapped Roxxy in August 2021, and, now about a year and a half old, she’s flying to higher perches than ever before. When she sees prey a good distance away, she flies off with the falconers in pursuit listening for the bell chimes and looking up high to find her new perch. It doesn’t take long for anyone on a hunt to get a painful “falconer’s neck.”
During the hunt, Fannon, Ames and Brown search for squirrel nests in the trees. When they spot one, they pull on vines to shake the tree and then shout, “Hah! Hah!” to try and make the squirrels scamper out. When one does, they yell, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” hoping Roxxy now knows opportunity awaits.
“They usually don’t need any help,” says Brown, who at times expertly launches a marble into a nest with his slingshot in hopes of flushing out a squirrel. “Hawks are natural born killers. They’re already very good at this. Their eyesight is incredible.”
Even so, Fannon cheers on her raptor, at times yelling out, “Come on, Rox!” or “Come on, baby girl!”
Two of Roxxy’s closest calls occur while she seems to be ignoring the falconers’ attempts to assist her. As they shake trees, Roxxy sits perched up high until she suddenly launches at scampering, panic-stricken squirrels on trees nearby. Both times, the squirrels hit the ground with Roxxy landing like a bombshell right on top of them. But on each occasion, the squirrels escape to live another day.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
“If they’re staying up on a limb not flying away, there’s usually a good reason why,” Ames says. “They see something.”
Ames’ red-tailed hawk, which he named 22 because he is Ames’ 22nd raptor, had the first hunt of the day. After attaching a transmitter to one of 22′s legs, Ames lets his bird take flight.
On one occasion, with a squirrel flushed from its nest and the trio yelling “Ho! Ho! Ho!” the red-tailed hawk chases the squirrel up a tree until there is no more tree to climb. So the squirrel takes its only remaining option. It jumps, falling about 25 feet to the forest floor. 22 dives down in pursuit, but it’s too late. The squirrel is gone.
“Once a squirrel figures out that there’s no more up, they usually bail,” Ames says.
Ames weighs 22 each morning to make sure he’s in the best hunting shape possible — almost two and a half pounds. A somewhat ironic feature of the hunt is that the falconers try to keep their birds from eating a captured squirrel, which they’ll eat in its entirety if given the chance. If the hawk is allowed to be a glutton, it won’t hunt for at least a week, Ames said.
For that reason, when 22 catches a squirrel, Ames will throw a fresh piece of meat on the ground nearby. This gets the hawk to let go of the dead varmint and take the easy bite while Ames picks up the squirrel and puts it in a satchel that hangs below his back. Once home, the squirrel will be put in the freezer for another meal down the road.
This day, like Roxxy, 22 has some close calls but no kills. At one point, 22 lands atop a squirrel’s nest and looks down intently, waiting for some movement. After enough waiting, 22 then plunges his head into the nest. But there is either no squirrel inside or one with the good sense to stay where it is.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
A couple of other times, after a squirrel is flushed from a nest and scampers up the tree, 22 flies up above it from branch to branch — called laddering — to try to catch it. On one occasion, the squirrel holds onto the tree for dear life, not moving, out of 22′s view. Even with Ames, Fannon and Brown bellowing “Ho! Ho! Ho!” 22 loses interest and flies away, another missed opportunity.
Ames, who is retired and lives in Marietta, has been a falconer for 16 years. He usually returns his raptors to the wild after a few years, then goes out to find a new one. After trapping a hawk and training it for about a month, it’s ready to go on a hunt, he says.
“Of course, they already know how to hunt,” he adds. “They just need to learn how to tolerate us and learn to come back.”
Ames says he names his raptors by number because if he gives them real names he might become too close to them and let his guard down. “You can’t let that happen,” he says. “They can really hurt you if you’re not careful. They’re not your pets.”
Brown, who’s got the scars to prove it, agrees.
“If one bites you, it will bring tears to your eyes,” he says. “If you get footed by one with those strong talons, it will bring you to your knees.”
Brown first became interested in falconry attending a deer hunters’ convention 22 years ago. Walking through the halls, he turned a corner and saw five guys with raptors on their gloves. A year later, he trapped his first bird, naming it Chopper, and has had many others since then.
“When you get a bird that follows you through the forest like it’s supposed to, it’s amazing, so much fun,” Brown says. “I’ve got a gun and a bow in my house that I haven’t used in a long, long time.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
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