Meet Atticus!
"Who the HELL are YOU, lady?" Atticus is unhooded for the "getting to know you" phase of our new relationship. He hates hair.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten up so much asphalt in so little time. I made it to Sprague, WA in well under 5.5 hours, including stops.
J’s place is pretty much one big Falconer’s Man Cave. Birds were staked out for weathering in the yard and in his modified truck camper. Indoors, one had to dodge a napping, hooded Prairie falcon to get to the kitchen. Various taxidermized animals, big ratty La-Z-Boys and the ubiquitous big-screen tv dominated the living room.
I imagined that my house would soon look much like this, only with a bit better taste in mute-resistant fabrics, and color-coordinated starling and quail feathers piling into the corners like snowdrifts among the dust-bunnies. (OK, so this place, though just as cluttered, might actually be cleaner than mine at this point…)
I chit-chatted with the biologist/falconer visiting from Seattle as J. went to fetch D2, but I don’t remember a word the guy said. I was too excited. And when J. came in with the little Barbary, I was immediately smitten.
The crush was unrequited, though; when J. unhooded D2, the bird gave me a “Holy crap” look and bated in the other direction.
“Oh, yeah. He doesn’t like hair. Or hats,” J said. J, I should note, is bald. I have a longish mane of reddish hair.
“Looks like you’re gonna have to shave that off,” said the biologist as the little Barbary settled back onto the glove and gave me the stink-eye.
Important Note: Falcons have a pronounced brow, and huge dark eyes. Nobody gives the stink-eye like a falcon. Nobody.
I quizzed J. on D2′s personal quirks and requirements as we exchanged the bird’s jesses and leash (I had informed J. well in advance that I was an idiot, so he was patient with me when I brought equipment that was either too big or too small for D2) and was disappointed to hear that J. didn’t have time to do a lure-flying demonstration. (He did a birdless “dry-run” to show me how to avoid breaking a falcon’s neck while pole-luring.) I’d wanted to meet his other Barbary, “The Dude”, about whom I’d read so much on NAFEX, but I understood. J was very thorough with his answers, though, and encouraged me to contact him with any questions I might have.
He also gave me some great pointers on choosing fields in which to fly D2. Pointing to an expansive pasture across the driveway, he said, “See that tree way over there? And that one waaay over there? And those, about a mile over there? Bad field. Too many distractions. If he sees something he can kill, he’ll go for it.”
Oh dear. Looks like I’m moving to Kansas.
Finally, we re-hooded D2 and placed him on his travel perch in the footwell of my passenger seat, and we were off to Montana to visit my sister and brother-in-law, by way of the Cabela’s in Post Falls where I wanted to a) pick up a Sampo swivel of the appropriate size for D2′s leash, and b) see if my head would explode with squeeee.
Since my relatives were visiting friends outside of Libby and returning the following day, I took my time driving to Trout Creek. D2 rode beautifully, though when he’d lean into a turn he’d also poop, effectively negating the straight-down muting habit of falcons, and effectively slicing like a hawk into the pocket of the passenger door.
At the motel, I was grateful to have an evening to myself to quietly get acquainted with the bird. I had been advised that I’d need to spend about a week “manning” him to me before actively flying or hunting him. Once unhooded, he slicked his feathers down and gave me the shocked “who the f* are you” look, from head to toe, but it didn’t take long for him to settle down. He took a quail breast from my glove with only a few minutes’ hesitation, and happily drank from a spray bottle. He pooped a lot, bated more than he would have with his previous falconer, and never stopped looking around, but I studied his mannerisms closely. Sooo different than a Red-tail, of course; his metabolism is faster, his core processor is faster, everything is faster.
I marveled at his wings. So long and thin for such a little bird, and in a bate, he’d send papers flying as he pulled with almost the same force as would Tali, who is more than twice his weight.
His tiny, notched beak, designed to snap the necks of prey in flight, made short work of the quail’s ribcage in my glove. In a larger bird, my fingers would be in danger of being snapped, but with D2, he was almost polite in his examination of my fingers, picking off flecks of gore with delicate precision before flinging them in all directions. Instead of biting me when I played with his long, thin yellow toes, he would gently nibble a “Stop It”, and give me that look.
He seemed to get used to my hair pretty quickly. I’d present a lock of it, and let him bite or preen it, but his anxiety quickly disappeared. I decided this would become part of our routine, also introducing different types of hats into his working and feeding sessions.
I practiced hooding him and unhooding him, thankful for the expertly-fitted hood custom made for D2 by J. himself, who is a hoodmaker on the side.
A friend once asked me what my type of guy was. Never really having a “type”, I said, “I’m looking for Atticus Finch.” Of course, I have no interest in lawyers, per se, but quiet, strong, loyal heroes who, as a bonus, are also deadly with a rifle.
As I marveled over this little falcon, got to know him and make him comfortable with his new person, and tried to imagine upcoming seasons working with this new species, I recalled my favorite quote from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, attributed to Atticus’ character:
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
I’ve tried to live by these words my entire life. Sometimes to a fault; at others, I’ve failed miserably. But in working with animals (and people, too), it’s a beautiful thing to peel away all the filters through which we see our world, and focus on what is most basic.
So this is how D2 became Atticus. And I look forward to seeing how this bird will help me see my world.
