Every night on YouTube is just like any other…well up until now! I found out there is a type of falconry activity called “Bird Abating”. There was one video out of the 1,000 videos that I watched that had this activity mentioned, but I never knew the exact word for it. Bird abating is when a falconer trains a raptor to scare away pest birds. This can be useful in farming communities where flocks of crows or blackbirds can eat all the crops. Obviously, this ends up to problems for these farmers because less crops are harvested at the end of the season. Sometimes, new crops can’t grow because the soil is destroyed from the fallen or dried up crops. So, instead of using pesticides on the crops, which is harmful to all wildlife, a natural method is used where falconers train their raptors to chase these birds away. Now, the only downside to using a falcon or hawk to scare away other birds is that they are no longer hunting for prey! Obviously in the wild, these birds of prey survive only on the prey they catch, so it is assumed that these birds will never be released and are used in captivity for their whole lives! To me, this is a problem because NO bird of prey should be kept forever. They are meant to be free and open in the wild, NOT chained up when they are done for the day. Many falconers who train their raptors to hunt only keep them for several months before releasing them in the wild. They also assist their raptors making their catches easier to kill by using a knife to finish the job. This way the raptor doesn’t injure its wings while it tries to stabilize its prey and prevent it from escaping. I’ve actually seen videos of hawks losing battles to prey right at the end. The prey is already bleeding and ends up escaping out of the raptor’s talons, and sometimes, they die a slow painful death hours later then some vulture feasts on it the next day. Nature is cruel sometimes, but that’s part of life! You know what’s even worse, if the prey escapes, then the raptor has no meal. What if it continues to fail hunting time and time again until it finally starves to death? Well, apparently, hunting with hawks is considered illegal for falconers because it is consider cruel and inhumane. Here’s something even crazier, these inexperienced raptors are all alone and so many of these raptors die all because no-one wants to learn how to help them! Here in New Jersey, there is a hawk-watching area and according to a website, only 10% of these raptors return home after the Winter is over! Talk about a population annihilation! Now, YOU tell me how cruel nature is! I DARE YOU TO!!! I’m sick of seeing such statistics showing up. I’m OBSESSED with watching hawks, and one day I’m going to be hunting with them and I’m NOT going to let history repeat itself! There needs to be a time where at least half of these raptors can return to their nest, rather than 10%. I’m surprised hawks, eagles, and falcons aren’t extinct yet, seriously! Things would be WAYYYY worse if nobody trained their birds of prey to hunt! Also, if some falconers are using their raptors to chase birds away, why are SO MANY raptors in the wild being chased by smaller birds such as crows and mockingbirds? Also, these raptors are just STANDING there ignoring them and they are not even attacking them back. Eventually the raptors just fly away and get attacked elsewhere! I’m NEVER EVER seen a wild hawk chase birds deliberately, unless their nest is being intruded upon! So, I’m a little baffled that any falconer would use bird abating instead of hunting. I guess falconers have been doing everything wrong for thousands of years. They are all undeserving fools who only want to kill living things. It says in the bible, “Thou shalt not kill”, but that’s apparently what’s going on in the wild too.
So here’s a few questions for you to stretch your knowledge upon, can you change natural selection? No! Can you change a hawk’s diet? NO! Lastly, can you hunt with hawks so that they can be stronger in the wild and prevent them from starving and then dying?” NO, because it is inhumane to hunt and watch prey be eaten.
You might not be able to change a hawk’s diet, but let me tell you, a hawk’s gotta survive somehow. After I looked through all the 1,000 videos that I liked on my YouTube page, I found the very first video I saw of a hawk. It is ULTRA RARE footage of a Red Tailed hawk eating bread in Philly, which is about 28 miles away from where I live.
After watching that, THAT’S when I starting getting obsessed into hawks. So, I searched for more hawks eating bread! This video was taken after a Red-Shouldered hawk almost snatched a crow in mid-air but the crow dropped the bread.
Want more? Well, I have a playlist of 3 other videos of hawks eating bread. If you can find a 6th video if a hawk eating bread, please let me know! Haha, good luck, because I guarantee you won’t find another. Less than 1% of the time will they be not be eating live prey or carrion. Now, enough of the silly talk! The reason why I decided to continue to find any hawk related videos is because a lot of them are accustomed to living in urban areas, and that’s where I can see more exciting footage. A lot of times, they’ll eat their prey 5 feet away from people that are walking by. Here’s something fun and exciting that I liked recently, a hawk mating while eating at the SAME time! Check this one out.
So, as you can see, I have no preference over what a hawk is doing in a video, as long as its hawk related, I’m watching it. The keywords I am always searching for on YouTube are “hawks”, “Red Tailed hawk”, “Cooper’s Hawks”, “Red Shouldered hawks”, and more recently “Falconry” and “birds of prey”. I never deviate from those search terms and I place “likes” on every video that’s hawk related.
As for me becoming a falconer, it can’t seem to happen soon enough. I still live with my grandma, plus I live in difficult times because I’ve spent at least at least $8,000 promoting my online business. I also spent another $10,000 on Neobux (boy was that a big mistake), and lost about $1,500 in a pump and dump stock. I’m still trying to promote my two traffic exchange websites every night, plus I’m entering contests on pch.com. On top of all that, I still work at a day job at Sears. So, I’m completely booked and will continue to be for a long time! I have nothing to look forward to. Ever since my cat died, I’ve been longing for another friend. The other cat my grandma has is afraid of me and runs away when I try to pet her unless she’s on the sofa. I feel like I really need a hawk friend (a Red Tailed hawk to be exact). Who am I kidding though. It’ll never happen! Maybe in a new life I’ll get one! I do want to teach my future hawk how to hunt, but since that is inhumane, I’m not allowed to. So my hopes and dreams of becoming a falconer are all officially dashed, and it’s my obsession of watching hawks eat that has caused this to fall apart.
In the meantime, I’ll try to watch more videos of hawks eating their prey. I enjoy watching hawks tearing about the prey’s skin limb from limb. It puts a smile on my face and gets rid of the stress that I get during a hard day’s word!
Here’s one you’ll absolutely LOVE! I’d love to do something like this if I invested in real estate and bought some condominiums that I can rent out to people. Then someone suddenly had a rat problem and they realized that their landlord (me) would be a falconer!
So remember, you can’t change a hawk’s eating habits, but its a real shame I’m not allowed to hunt with a hawk because someone falconer on YOUTUBE told me it’s wrong!
Here’s a video of a Red Tailed hawk eating a baby groundhog. I show no remorse for the groundhog, and I could care less about its prey being a baby. The hawk doesn’t pick on its prey. It just happened that was the easiest prey to hunt for at the moment. Who knows, it may fail at hunting dozens of animals because it can successfully catch another.
Keep this in mind! Next time you see a hawk in your backyard or park or anywhere else and you see a hawk eating its prized catch, keep this in mind…
THIS MAY BE THE HAWK’S LAST MEAL!!! Yep, that’s right, its life ends with that meal. It may continue to fail to catch its prey dozens of times before it uses up all its energy and totally starves to death. Then you’ll see a dead hawk in your backyard. How lovely!