Falconwing

Falconry

As a professional falconer, Rosen has trained all of her birds, which now number close to a dozen. Her brood includes Ziggy, a hybrid prairie-gyrfalcon. (Jon McPherson for Napa Valley Vintners)

Excerpt:

On a late summer afternoon, a sudden silence descends upon Bouchaine Vineyards in California’s Napa Valley. Moments earlier, a trio of songbirds sat chirping and pecking away at a cluster of ripe Chardonnay grapes dangling from one of the vines at the 84-acre wine estate. Now the only sounds are their wings flapping in the afternoon breeze. The reason for their quick getaway becomes apparent as a falcon swoops down from the cloudless sky and lands on his master’s forearm, which is sheathed in a thick, elbow-length leather glove.

Rosen is the owner and one of several falconers at Authentic Abatement, a bird-control services firm in Napa Valley that counts half a dozen vineyards in the area as its clients. Her falcon Ziggy is a “lure bird,” meaning his job is to scare off pest birds like starlings from the area—not hunt them. Rosen has trained Ziggy, a hybrid prairie-gyrfalcon named for the David Bowie song, to follow a piece of leather attached to a length of cord that she swings back and forth over her head. The lure’s movements mimic that of a bird, and drive the falcon to do multiple sweeps of the vineyard.

Vineyards love Rosen’s birds, too. Running a vineyard is no joke: Here in Napa Valley, the heart of winemaking country, wine sales bring in more than $13 billion each year—meaning the stakes are sky-high for vintners to protect their lucrative harvest. Vintners find themselves in a near-constant battle with insects, disease and other pests that threaten their business. One of those threats is grape-gobbling pest birds, which treat vineyards as an all-you-can-eat buffet and can potentially decimate an entire crop in no time.

Over the years, vintners have turned to a variety of newfangled deterrents to stop that from happening—including noisy air cannons, ribbons of mylar tape, netting draped over the vines, speakers, and air dancers (those creepy looking inflatable tubes you see gracing auto dealerships nationwide). But some are now returning to a time-tested method that requires no fancy tech: falconry. The ancient avian sport, which began in the Far East around 1700 B.C., later came to be called “the sport of kings.”

In recent years, several falconry companies have sprouted up in the area as demand for new ways to drive out pests has increased.  It turns out that despite modern advancements, there’s nothing quite like a scary predator bird to keep other birds at bay for good.