27 October 06

Falcon in my Office

Tamara as stereotype I’ve had this really big critical push at work to get a project finished, but yesterday at three we were lured out into the sunshine by shrieks of delight. A falcon with jesses, a bell and a transmitter had just wandered on into the student lab, and Tamara had scooped it up and was looking like something out of a fantasy story set in Scotland. Tamara and Bird Except we’re in Davis, not Scotland, and this weird looking bird was not a peregrine, not a kestrel, not anything like anything I’d ever seen.

The falcon belongs to a falconer who had lost it in the huge windstorm we had on Wednesday. He had posted flyers all over the place, never really expecting to see the bird again. (It’s a hybrid cross between a Barbary and Taita falcon: falconers do barbaric things in their spare time. But as such, the only one like it certainly in the United States, it’s probably worth a bit of money.)

Santiago the farmworker guy was hanging out when the falcon landed in his truck. He brought it over to us, not sure of where he was going (he was heading for the Raptor Center but was unsure of his way). He called the owner, who dropped to his knees when he saw the bird on Tamara’s wrist. He calls the bird “Bird.”

A different kind of excitement than the red-breasted or taiga flycatcher, which hasn’t been seen since Wednesday evening…

Posted by at 08:11 PM in Miscellaneous | Link |
  1. Wow. Nice surprise guest there. I bet the bird’s beautiful; I’m trying to imagine what a cross between those species would look like.

    Good thing Bird is at least that habituated to humans. I’m also trying to imagine what Santiago felt when the bird landed in his truck. IN??
    — Ron Sullivan    28. October 2006, 07:48    Link
  2. Ron:Photos will follow tomorrow. I had never even HEARD of a Taita falcon… let alone a hybrid.
    — Pica    28. October 2006, 19:35    Link
  3. I heard a falconer describe how he obtains falcon sperm for his inter-species cross-breeds: he wears a specially outfitted hat and engages in a mating dance with the male falcon, flapping his aems and so forth. When the bird reaches a peak of excitement, he mounts the falconer’s head and ejaculates into the hat.

    And people think blogging is a strange hobby!
    — Dave    30. October 2006, 05:00    Link
  4. “Go WHAT in your hat…”??? as my dear old dad used to not-quite say in Yiddish.

    Lovely bird, though. Joe hauled out the second-fattest raptor book and we had a look at both parents. How cool to meet Bird up close and personal.
    — Ron Sullivan    30. October 2006, 09:08    Link

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