Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - 30

meet the falconer and pick up the redtailed hawk.
This being Christmas Eve, Steve
thought of St. Nicholas and thus named
the female hawk Nikita, whom we quickly
began to call Nikki.
Nikki was a first-year bird, around five
months old, and when Steve brought her
home, he began the process of "manning" her-a necessary first step to get the
hawk used to being around him to lose its
fear. On the first day, he sat with her for a
couple of hours. The next day he sat with
her for four hours. On that second day-
Christmas Day-she began to feed. As part
of her training, he would offer her small
bits of meat-beef heart or chicken liver-
until she looked at him as a food source.
Soon she began feeding on his gloved fist.
In time, he moved back away from her to
make her fly to him, and within about two
weeks, she began free-flying
outside.
"She was an easy bird to
train," he now reflects.
Admittedly, I was afraid of
Nikki and warned Annie not
to get close to her. I kept my
distance, too.
Nikki was a moderately
large hawk who had an intense golden glare, a hooked
beak and sharp talons.
Though my husband wore a
leather gauntlet when he held
her on his fist, I worried about
his safety. But he had bonded
with her and seemed to trust
her as she trusted him.
Yet Nikki could be willful, and one day
she got herself into trouble. Steve had
her on his fist in our back field when she
saw something, jumped off his glove, and
jerked the leash-connected to her leather
ankle jesses-out of his hand. She flew
and lit in a poplar tree, getting her leash
hung in a limb. He had to untangle her
with a long stick.
Another challenge with Nikki occurred
when Steve was free-flying her in the field.
"I released her, and she flew about a
hundred yards and lit in a tree," Steve recalls. "I waited around for a little while to
see if she spotted any game. Then I raised
my fist and whistled. She started to fly
back and suddenly closed her wings and
hit the ground in the high grass. I could

I discovered that she had captured a big
snake, and was in the midst of clawing
and pecking it, and it was striking at
her, trying to defend itself.
Steve Duncan and
Nikki the Hawk were
companions for more
than two years.

30

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Fish and Wildlife Service came and approved the mew.
Steve wanted a red-tailed hawk and had
been looking for one. His search was over
on December 24-Christmas Eve-when
a telephone call came from a falconer in
neighboring Buncombe County. The falconer had received a call from a farmer
who had discovered a red-tailed hawk
whose foot had gotten hung in chicken
wire while it tried to get to his chickens.
Excited about the news, Steve called
me at my mother's house, where I was
busy getting ready for our Christmas Eve
celebration in the evening.
I put my Christmas preparations aside
for the moment, and Steve, our daughter
Annie, my mother and I piled into my
Jeep and headed to Black Mountain to
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Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019

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