“So far I’m loving it, and my parents are very supportive, especially my dad,” animal science senior Madison Brandon said. “He thinks it’s the coolest thing ever that his daughter is a falconer.”
Laura Wilkinson
Special to Mustang News
In the soft morning light, meat scissors thwack as they cut through the neck of a quail, smattering drops of blood and gray feathers across the kitchen counter, barely missing the nearby toaster and loaf of white bread.
Inside the refrigerator, three more quail are cold and lifeless next to a bag of Fresh Express salad, awaiting their own decapitations. While some might lose their breakfast over such a scene, the trained falconer is just getting started on hers.
Animal science junior Lindsey Benger said she has always had a passion for animals — birds of prey in particular. While volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation center, she saw a flier advertising an apprenticeship working with peregrine falcons and decided to give it a try.
“I was 16 years old when I started the apprenticeship,” Benger said. “Didn’t even know falconry existed before that, but I was so excited to get involved once I found out.”
She is now a general licensed falconer and owns two birds of her own: Maya, a red-tailed hawk, and Zuko, a kestrel.
There are three levels of falconers.
The first is apprentice, which lasts two years and is completed under the volunteer guidance of a sponsor. Apprentices are able to trap their own birds but are limited to red-tailed hawks and kestrels. After the apprenticeship, the falconer is generally licensed, and can begin trapping a wider variety of birds. The falconer spends five years at this level, developing skills and gaining experience. After that, the federal government recognizes them as a master. Master falconers can work with any species of bird, and there are no restrictions on the number of birds they may own.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” Benger said.
Socially, falconry has been a great tool for Benger. People will often approach her and start up a conversation when they see her walking around campus with her birds or flying them at Laguna Lake Park.
“Usually they want to know if what I’m doing is legal,” Benger laughed.
Animal science senior Madison Brandon said this is exactly how she met Benger and got into falconry herself.
“After meeting Lindsey and becoming friends with her I started to look up the procedure and decided I wanted to do it,” Brandon said. “I heard about a guy in town who was doing bird abatement at Cold Canyon Landfill, and I called him to see if he would sponsor me.”
That guy ended up being master falconer Fred Seaman, and he did agree to sponsor her.
“I could tell when she called that she’d been bit by the falconry bug,” Seaman said. “Who was I to say no to that?”
Seaman is CEO of AirStrike Bird Control, a business he started to help local farmers keep pest birds off their property and away from crops. He also breeds falcons for sale to other falconers.
According to Seaman he is one of the “lucky few” in the world of falconry able to turn their passion into a viable career.
“Around here I mostly work with vineyards and blueberry farmers,” Seaman said. “My day starts at sunrise. I get about four birds ready and I take them up to the property we’ll be working on.”
What happens next is an elaborate game of cat and mouse. One at a time, Seaman releases a falcon to stir up the pest birds and chase them away. When the falcon returns, it gets a treat and time to rest, and then the next one goes out. The rotation continues like this for hours.
Seaman said he doesn’t normally ask his falcons to catch the pest birds, but he will if they start losing respect.
“Basically we’re effective because the starlings can recognize, even from a great distance, that the falcons are a real threat to them and that if they don’t fly away they’re going to get caught,” Seaman said. “No blueberry is worth that to a bird.”
By using the natural predator and prey relationship between his birds and the pest birds, Seaman said he is able to offer farmers an efficient, low-cost alternative to some of the more common methods used in agriculture.
“Shotguns are loud, and they’re potentially very dangerous,” Seaman said. “They also litter fields with lead shot, which is no good. Setting up acres of netting can get expensive fast, and doesn’t necessarily guarantee a crop will be safe from a hungry and determined starling. Propane cannons and noise pistols seem effective at first, but eventually the starlings figure out that nothing it going to chase them and it’s just a loud noise.”
Seaman owns more than 50 birds for both his breeding and bird abatement businesses. Having such a large, diverse group of birds is part of what makes his sponsorship so unique for an aspiring apprentice.
“A huge amount of learning to be a falconer is through oral tradition,” Seaman said. “Just like you can only train to be a doctor by going out with other doctors and putting your hands on bodies, falconry is the same way.”
World-renowned falconer and author Dan O’Brien writes that the roots of these traditions can be dated all the way back to 2,000 B.C. in China, from which point the practice spread west to the Middle East and Europe. It gained incredible popularity during the medieval period. Although times have changed since then, the core of falconry culture remains constant.
At the moment Brandon is one of two apprentices to Seaman. She has just under a year left in her unpaid apprenticeship but Seaman is confident they will remain lifelong friends even after it ends. He describes the bond between sponsor and apprentice as something of a “fraternity,” largely because the relationship is voluntary on both ends.
“So far I’m loving it, and my parents are very supportive, especially my dad,” Brandon said. “He thinks it’s the coolest thing ever that his daughter is a falconer.”
But as student falconers, both Brandon and Benger do face some challenges, particularly with time.
“You have to weight-manage your birds really precisely to keep them healthy,” Brandon said. “Finding time between classes to hunt and fly them is difficult.”
“It’s a whole lifestyle,” Benger adds. “With hobbies, you can stop doing them from time to time, but with falconry it’s 24/7.”
At the moment, Benger is working on building a free loft for Maya, an open-cube structure the bird can nest in when it is tired of its perch. She said after that, she’ll probably find another project to start.
Brandon said living with non-falconer roommates has also been an obstacle.
“My kestrel, Arya, is excommunicated to the garage,” Brandon said. “She’s never allowed inside where it’s warm and safe. Sometimes I also like to put food in the fridge and that turns into a problem too.”
Benger, who also lives with non-falconer roommates, can relate.
“We get so used to handling bloody raw meat on a daily basis that we forget normal members of society don’t like that,” Benger said, exchanging amused looks with Brandon.
Still, neither one can see giving up falconry any time soon. The average lifespan of each of their falcons is about 20 years. Provided everything goes right, Brandon and Benger both fully intend to make the most of that time.
“Creating a connection with your bird is one of the best parts of doing this,” Benger says. “They trust us and get attached to us. When we catch them they’re totally wild, sometimes even aggressive towards humans and then slowly a bond is built. It’s awesome.”
“All the information is out there, anyone can become a falconer,” Brandon said. “It’s not just something two weird girls on campus do.”
Full disclosure: Madison Brandon is the author’s housemate.