We completed our first full season as a falconry team.

Even though we didn’t catch any game, I remind myself that we learned a lot. I knew this was going to be hard, but I adore Wyatt and even when I’m frustrated, he’s worth it. And there was progress! Wyatt started to chase rabbits and on a couple days he seemed like he almost had it figured out. And hey, we caught that half a dead rabbit! I loved spending the cloudy days crashing through brush, and finding pockets of city wilderness. I’m excited for next season! Even if we spend a season apart to focus on learning independently, I am hopeful we’ll come back together better prepared. 

January marked a year of Wyatt being on my personal falconry license.

A lot of the time him being truly mine doesn’t feel real. I spent so many years feeling struggling to make his life better to protect him from the coercive handlers trying to force him into a mold he didn’t fit, but knowing that as much as I loved him, he wasn't mine, and I didn't get the final say. Now unbelievably he’s  mine, all my responsibility. Sometimes it makes me incredibly anxious, worried I’ll mess up, and squander this precious opportunity I’ve been given. I worry over him a lot. But when I stop and think, I just feel so lucky.I feel as close to flying as I can, watching him fly.

And February marked five years of working together!!!

Because I'm shallow, I fell half in love with Wyatt the second I saw his photo in my raptor program (CRP) orientation and heard he was named after Wyatt Earp. A year later when I really met him, I fell the rest of the way.

Wyatt’s longterm handler was leaving the program. She had single-handedly introduced choice based training to the CRP, and started a culture shift that has done so much good for the raptors there. She fundamentally changed the way I understood working with raptors. She was very anxious about leaving Wyatt. I am so honored that she trusted me to take him on. I look up to her so much and it meant the world to me to be trusted in that way. 

Starting with Wyatt wasn’t easy, despite all the work she'd done he wasn’t very well socialized, and took a while to trust me. I remember at the beginning he was terrified of strangers. I put so much time into introducing him to new people slowly, and now he won’t leave new people alone in the field. He has to check if they have snacks. He wouldn’t stay on the glove if a moved at all; even a slight shift would send him flying off. I started feeding him tiny tidbits in rapid succession (an almost continuous delivery of quail) as I walked farther and farther down the hall to teach him that good things happened if he stayed. AND NOW HE WILL LET ME WALK THROUGH DOORS!!! He used to hate the box; now I can take him on overnight trips in it. He used to hang limply off the glove after one bate; now he’ll bate snd recover multiple times while I get his gear off to fly. He’s not scared anymore, just excited to get moving.

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I spent so much time trying to give him as much choice as I could to make up for all the times his choice was taken away, and every time he chooses to include me in his world, I fall more in love. I frequently joke that I think someone replaced him with a different bird when I wasn’t looking, I think I’ve probably written it in a post here somewhere too. But I honestly cannot believe how far he’s come. So many things I thought he would never do, we’re doing together now. I used to treat him like he was made of glass, it’s breathtaking to see how resilient he’s become. 

I’m frequently too busy worrying about the future to consider how far we’ve come. This bird changed the course of my life. I don’t know where I would be now without him, but it probably wouldn’t be a falconer and professional bird trainer. I adore him.