Hunting With Falcons: How One City Man Found His Calling in the Wild | Short Film Showcase

I grew up in Riverside, California. I have two brothers and three sisters. My mom would take me out in the country sometimes and just drop me off, and I would just go explore. My fourth-grade teacher told me I'm not supposed to go off in the mountains and ski and get pinecones and fish; your kind of people don't do that. But being out in the parks and river bottoms in the mountain areas where I lived, I was able to see some of the wild birds fly, catch rabbits, chase each other, and raise young. I didn't really understand what it was, but I knew I didn't want to have some type of a relationship with the birds.

Some friends of mine found this bird out in the street. There was a young right doha, not even ready to fly. If they knew that I was into birds, they brought it to me, so I raised this bird. One of my friends brought home a falconry book. I tried to read it, but I really didn't understand it because it was really in-depth. But I would just look at the pictures, trying to put as much as I could together. I knew that falconers put bells on their birds, so I would go up in the attic, raid my mom's Christmas decorations, and put Christmas bells on my bird's legs, thinking that was a part of the falconry equipment.

You know, I'm walking around with a garden glove. I have this hawk on my fist, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I'm practicing falconry in the city. Falconry is not a sport; it's not an art; it's a way of life. Falconry was started before we had guns. That was a way that people put food on the table. My birds, to me, were just partners. It's my responsibility to provide them with the opportunity to go out and hunt.

You try to orchestrate the perfect flight. The enjoyment I get out of it is watching, and that's the relationship falconers and falcons have. We don't fly our birds with strings on them. Sometimes they do fly away, and you have to start over. Every day you get your bird back is a successful day. On my bird's hunt, they're pretty serious; they're designed for speed. The pointed wings, you know how their feathers are shaped, and long toes, and that little notch in their nose cuts the air and allows them to breathe while they come down and strike their prey with force.

When they're coming to approach their game, you hear it before you see it. Through that air, they make contact. It's like a jab; the punch the falcon strikes is shaped for their beaks, designed to snap the vertebrae and kill them instantly. Raptors and hawks live really hard lives, and to have a relationship with a wild animal, knowing that that wild animal accepts you as a partner and as a friend, is the blessing. That bird doesn't care what color I am. That bird doesn't care what kind of car I drive. That bird doesn't care where I sleep at night.

If I make that bird understand that I want to be its partner and give it an opportunity to live and fly and have a relationship with me, I can apply that to you or anybody else. The day that I release my bird back out to the wild, I know that bird is gonna survive. I know that bird is gonna go out and probably get a mate and produce other birds in the wild, and I was a part of it. I look at those mountains of the Sierras and the Whites, and sometimes I really actually pinch myself, like, wow, I'm really here.

I practice falconry with people in Europe. I practice walking with people in the Middle East and South Africa. I'm not rich, but I live a pretty good life. I never even thought that I would make a living traveling the world and consulting on different techniques with different falconers. I want to actually try to give back and share some of my experiences. If I can help other falconers and non-falconers understand what falconry is doing, you know, if I can keep a kid from becoming a drug addict and if I can help a kid stay in school, that's the peak, other than catching a prairie chicken with my falcons. But yeah, that would be my perfect flight.