Desert raptors

Here are some more Harris' hawk photos, again by Jessa, from our recent (well, early last month) trip to Arizona.

But unlike the "streetlight hawk" from yesterday's post, these are not wild hawks. Instead, they are "ed birds" from the raptor free-flight demo at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Jessa and I have been to ASDM two or three times, but this is the first time we've seen the raptor demo, and I have to admit I was impressed. The birds are flown with telemetry but without jesses and without being directly handled; instead, trainers slip discreetly through the designated area leaving tidbits on branches and giving subtle visual cues to the birds; so unobtrusive are they that I suspect some visitors never notice them. 

 

The Harris' hawks are presented as the finalé (I'm deliberately going out of order), and ASDM's website calls attention to "the only raptor species in the world that hunt as a family, using strategy (like wolves)". And that is, of course, impressive. I was a bit surprised, however, that the demo's narrator did not point out that this is unique to the Sonoran desert. The Harris' hawk is a widely distributed species, ranging as far south as Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Throughout much of its range, the Harris' is a standard-issue, territorial, non-social raptor; the cooperative breeding and associated group hunting behaviour of Sonoran Harris' hawks (and captive-bred eyasses of Sonoran descent) evolved as adaptations to a particularly demanding environment. Then again, I'm not altogether sure how many of my fellow falconers realise this.

More interesting to me personally than the Harris' hawks was the grey hawk, sometimes referred to as the Mexican goshawk. This diminutive buteo, with its barred breast plumage and banded tail, does bear a superficial resemblance to the accipiters, and its relatively short wings and quick wingbeat make it more agile than most buteos. Its quarry tends to be small and predominantly reptilian, but I would love to fly one if I lived within the grey hawk's native range. In the United States, however, that is limited to a small area in southeastern Arizona and another in southern Texas—and in both places grey hawks are summer residents, migrating southward with the onset of cooler weather. 

A raptor with virtually no utility from a falconry standpoint, but interesting in its own right, is the crested caracara. It is a grand opportunist, living primarily on carrion but also pirating kills from other raptors and sometimes hunting small prey for itself. Despite appearances—notably the bare face and the "Elvis" crest—the caracara is a member of the Falconidae, more closely related to the true falcons than to the hawks. 

The great horned owl ("tiger of the desert") is not a desert specialist to the extent that the other species in the demo are, but they certainly do well in the Sonoran. 

This week will be an informal Desert Birds Week here at Flyover Country, featuring more of Jessa's photography and somewhat less of my writing, so please stay tuned.