The staff at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science have a lot of shared interests, chief among them is birds and wildlife.
Many of them also really love Renaissance festivals.
VINS staff combined those two interests to create an annual falconry event, the third of which will take place from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. next Saturday. Admission is $14.50-$16.50, with children 3 and under free.
“I think falconry appeals to people because it seems unknown and mysterious,” said Anna Morris, lead environmental educator at VINS.
Once a status symbol and method of hunting small game that in Asia, the Middle East and medieval Europe, falconry looms large in many fantasy tales, and the practice lives on today as a sport.
“It’s still practiced today,” Morris said. “Falconry, I’ve heard, it’s called a way of life more than a hobby.”
One falconer still practicing is Jessica Snyder, who is the lead falconer at New England Falconry, which is located in Woodstock and Hadley, Mass. Snyder has been a falconer for 10 years, and she’ll be at the VINS event to talk about falconry and the birds that are used. While the activity is called falconry, falcons are not the only birds used. Other birds of prey including owls, eagles and hawks participate.
“Falconry by definition is hunting with a trained bird of prey after wild quarry,” said Snyder, noting that raptors target small game including squirrels, rabbits, pheasants and even ducks. “We get a lot of questions like ‘Do birds bring things back’? That’s always a ‘no.’ ”
While birds of prey can carry smaller creatures like mice when they fly, the Harris’s Hawk that Snyder will bring to VINS cannot carry bigger game like rabbits and squirrels.
“They typically can only carry about half of their body weight,” Snyder explained. Instead, after killing a larger creature, the hawk will alert its handler to the location of its kill. “In falconry, we would go to the bird, not the other way around.”
Snyder is often asked why the birds don’t fly away and back into the wild.
“The reason being is that birds of prey are 1) gluttonous creatures — they’re always hungry — and 2) they want the most benefit for the least amount of effort. We equal a free and easy meal,” she said.
After a bird catches a rabbit or squirrel, for example, the handler will make a trade with them, often offering a smaller meal in exchange for the larger creature.
“It decides, ‘I’ll give you that rabbit if you give me that mouse,’ because they can eat the mouse very quickly and easily,” Snyder explained.
Training birds of prey is not as difficult as it might appear.
“The basis of it is that we reward for behaviors we want the birds to repeat and we ignore behaviors we want the birds to forget about,” Snyder said. New England Falconry usually gets Harris’s Hawks when they’re around 4 months old. “Typically for our birds here, the birds are free-flying outside in our programs in about two weeks.”
In captivity, Harris’s Hawks can live up to 30 years, she said. In the wild, “there’s a very high mortality risk in a bird’s first year of life,” she said. “Most won’t make it through their first winter.”
At the VINS event, attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about birds of prey. The event also includes an archery demonstration (with an option to try it out), hands-on activities involving animal pelts and skulls, a raptor feeding, and the ever-popular fairy house building. New this year is an interactive performance presented by the group Shakespeare Approves!
“We encourage our visitors to come dressed up because the staff will be all dressed up,” Morris said. “We’re all really excited about it and can’t wait to have a fun day.”
Editor’s note: For more information about the event, visit vinsweb.org or call 802-359-5000. Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
