I admit it, I’m completely obsessed with Red Tailed hawks! Whenever I watch a video of this hawk, I just enjoy its magnificent beauty! Of course, there’s also the things that these hawks do that impress me as well. I love watching them eat whenever they catch their prey. Within the past month, there is one thing that’s on my mind, eating with them! I have watched so many Red Tailed hawks and other hawks eating their prey, I want to eat live prey myself! Now, just to clarify, I am not looking to hunt and catch prey to eat, I am simply trying to find a hawk that’s already eating prey, and maybe the hawk is willing to share its meal with me. Who am I kidding? That would never happen. A hawk will protect its meal no-matter who or what is coming near it. I should just forget all about it. The only problem is, I CAN’T forget all about it! This is something that I constantly think about at work. Every minute or every hour of the day is a constant whirlpool of me imagining myself kneeling down on the grass and taking that first bite of prey that a hawk has captured. Now, here’s the reason why I constantly think about doing this. Hawks live to hunt and survive on live prey. In the ancient sport of falconry, hawks has served their handlers to hunt for them in exchange of a trade-off of a smaller meal in order to keep them healthy so that they hunt more often. The handler is only a provider of food to the hawk. Nothing else! Therefore, once the hawk gets full, there is no reason for the hawk to return to you. There are two things that could happen, it could stay there at the meal site and act lazy and just stare at you. Or it could fly over to the nearest tree. It’ll most likely stay there for a few hours until its crop empties out enough that its hungry enough to eat again. There is also the possibility, it may continue to fly off until it so far away that there is no chance of ever finding it again. So, as a rule of thumb, a falconer always keeps the hawk hungry. That way the falconer doesn’t have to resort to waiting until the hawk wants to come back. One good question to ask is “Does the hawk actually avoid the falconer after its full”? The answer is probably “no”, but this is something else I obsess over. There shouldn’t any reason for a hawk to avoid the falconer just because it doesn’t want to eat. The falconer isn’t going to force the hawk to eat, although I might! You’ll never know! I am interested in feeding hawks, but the trade-off is something I don’t like. I would rather just allow a hawk to eat as much as he/she desires. I will cover its wings with my arms if I have to. However, I will NOT use a tether to chain the hawk up to its meal! I’m calling it “chained up” not tethering, sorry falconers! I’m not going to control this hawk in any way. I want to be a friend to a hawk, not a handler! I know that it is simply not possible to change the fact that a hawk only thinks of the falconer as a provider of food, especially since the hawk is only going to be him/her until Spring arrives. However, maybe there is a slight chance if my hawk gets overfilled, it may return to me just because I am there to provide comfort and shelter for the hawk. You probably wouldn’t think a hawk would care about something like that, but you’ll never know. However, I’ll be prepared for the unexpected. With the rapid change of technology, we have allowed to track the hawk using GPS trackers and an app on your phone can show exactly where the hawk is. I’ll locate my hawk somehow and I’ll be ready for it when I become a falconer. Oh, and don’t forget about the live prey feeding obsession too! Yep, I’ll be doing that too. I only desire hawk’s meal for two reasons, to share something in common with a hawk and to slowly but surely change into the Red Tailed hawk I want to become. Yep, this is just like when Tobias changes into a Red Tailed hawk in Animorphs, but this is a slow change that’ll occur over time. I’ll post the v-log on this once I get it done. Also I do own a Red Tailed hawk plush doll named Ferocious which I sleep, eat and shower with every night. Whenever I eat, I simply place a toy rat next to my dish and Ferocious eats it in front of my dish.
Now as far as the prey-eating thing goes, I do actually plan on recording such a hawk eating its prey. However, hawks do not eat every day like we do. If they catch a small animal like a rat, they may have to eat 4 rats a day to keep its hunger satisfied. However, it they catch a squirrel, they won’t have to hunt for anything else for several days. Therefore, I’ll have to be at the right place at the right time. Then, I will then have to figure out how to get close to the hawk’s prey without the hawk considering me a threat. Needless to say, this would be a pretty darn unfeasible feat! I’m sure that I won’t even be able to get 50 feet from a hawk eating its prey. Heck, I couldn’t even get 200 feet from a Red Tailed hawk just standing on a telephone pole without it flying away from me! Its safe to say that I’ll be postponing this prey-eating activity until an indefinite time! Okay, that’s it! I know this blog post was a bit awkward, but I simply post whatever is on my mind, so that’s why I posted it. I know I’ve never eaten raw meat before, so this would be a first, that’s for sure. Its the perfect way to try it. I’ll be taking precautions before doing so, such as avoiding the outside skin since I’m sure the skin of the hawk’s prey is infested with bacteria. Other than that, it should be a smooth ride for the rest of the prey.
Here’s a video of a Red Tailed hawk eating a rabbit, and the person who recorded it seemed to want to get in on the action too. Good for him, although I know he’s joking, unlike me, wahahahaha! What an inspiration!