October 23 - Getting up close and personal with some birds of prey

I'm a sucker for sunsets so I have to put a picture of last night's  sunset.  It wasn't the most remarkable but it was nice.

 

What a marvelous day I’ve had!  We docked early this morning in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI), the smallest province of Canada. First a little about this place.  The island was inhabited by one of Canada’s first nations, the Mi’kmaq,  before the arrival of Europeans. The first of the explorers to come to this part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was the Frenchman Jacques Cartier in 1534.  In 1604 France laid claim to all of the Canadian Maritimes including the island and established the French colony of Acadia. During the 18th century the French and British fought over this part of North America with New Englanders attacking  and occupying PEI on behalf of Britain.  Control alternated between the two countries until 1748 when the British took full control. There were approximately 1000 French Acadians who were expelled at that time and they traveled to Louisiana, then French territory,  where they became Cajuns.

Prince Edward Island has a population of about 180,000 and is the most densely populated Canadian province. The economy is based principally on agriculture, tourism and fisheries.  It is famous for its mussels.  I can attest to the fact that they are yummy because I had some that were brought onboard this morning for lunch. It is also Canada’s largest supplier of potatoes.  Unlike Québec the language spoken by most of the population is English, but since Canada has two official languages, English and French, the signs are in both.

Now on to my wonderful tour.  Seabourn offered a shore excursion to the home and place of business of Peter McMurchy, a professional falconer, and I jumped at the opportunity to go.  I’m fascinated by birds of prey and I learned so much today.  Peter is an interesting character.  He was in the Canadian Air Force and piloted C-5 and C-17 aircraft and served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It was through his military career that he became interested in these birds.  I didn’t know this, but falcons and other raptors like them are used around airports to keep other flocks of birds away from runways. They are used in cities to keep pigeons away from buildings, and of course they are used for hunting.  Peter trains them and also helps to rehab injured ones.  He told us he owns about 15 birds all of which are raptors. He explained that these birds are all carnivores, but they are in two main groups.  One group swoops down from great heights and attacks its prey in the air, dealing a death blow by hitting the back of the neck of its target with its beak.  The other type flies down and grabs the prey on the ground with its talons.

Meet Chip

Isn't he a beauty?

Ignore the silly human on the left and just focus on Chip

Poor little No-Name Kestrel

In Virginia we have bald eagles, ospreys (which mainly eat fish), owls  and vultures in the raptor family.  I didn’t realize that the latter were raptors and just thought of them as ugly birds that feed on roadkill. Peter seemed quite taken by them because they clean up dead carcasses lying around.  I knew but had forgotten that eagles also are carrion eaters.  They will eat live prey, but apparently can be lazy  and like to feed on things killed by some other means.  I can remember seeing eagles feeding on salmon carcasses that had been munched on by bears which were just interested in the bellies and roe in the fish.

In his classroom Peter introduced us to two birds, a peregrine falcon named Chip and a kestrel whose name I can’t remember.  Chip wore a leather hood over his head.  The hoods are custom made of leather for each bird and cost about $500 each.  The falcon costs around $8000!  The birds are hooded when on a perch or on the handler’s arm to keep them calm and to help in building a bond between bird and handler.  I had the opportunity to have Chip come on my arm after donning a very thick leather gauntlet because he has great big talons.  He was also on a tether so that he didn’t try to fly around inside.  He weighed around 600 grams (about 1.3 pounds) and was about 16 inches long.  He had just finished molting so Peter said  his feathers would normally be a little longer.  The kestrel was smaller and will never be allowed into the wild because he was injured by a starling while he was a chick in the nest.  The other bird attacked the babies and fortunately for this kestrel a human saw the attack and shooed the starling away and rescued the baby.  The university here has a veterinary school and the school cared for it.  The bird was stitched up which took care of its body, but the attacker damaged one of the kestrel’s eyes so it can’t see out of that one.  Kestrel’s are interesting because they can hover like hummingbirds.  This one has been taught to fly in Peter’s den where it is safe.  He said that in the summer they will open windows and let moths fly into the room.  They turn the lights off then and the kestrel will fly around inside and catch and eat the moths because it can see well enough to do that.

Next we went outside to a field next to Peter’s house and we met Trina, a Harris’s Hawk.  The Harris’s Hawk is a medium sized bird about 20 inches long with a wingspan of more than 40 inches.  She was a beautiful reddish-brown, a very pretty bird indeed.  This bird had also been injured and nursed back to health and is currently in training.  She was on a long light-weight tether which allowed her to fly a range of probably 50 feet.  I took my turn having her land on my arm.  There was a technique to it.  I had to stand with my back to Trina and once again don a leather gauntlet on my left arm. Peter placed a piece of quail meat in the notch between my thumb and forefinger and then I had to raise hand and arm up high and look back over my shoulder at the bird.  She came from her perch 25 or so feet away and landed on my arm to pluck the morsel of food.  Peter told us you never should face the birds head on because the bird takes that as a sign of aggression and can get riled up.  It’s hard to describe what a neat feeling it is to have this magnificent bird land on you.  Wow!

Trina, the Harris's Hawk

Here she is landing on my friend Suzana's arm.  I forgot to ask someone to take my photo doing the same thing, but you get the picture.

It was a truly fascinating tour and I would go again if I had the opportunity.  After we ‘d all had a chance to interact with Trina we boarded our bus and drove back through Charlottetown to the dock.  The town is  picturesque.  There are a lot of churches with traditional steeples and some brightly painted clapboard houses.  The main street is Victoria Street and it had a variety of little shops and eateries.  I had thought about walking back when I got off the bus, but the wind was incredible and it was actually hard to walk.  Instead, I went back on the ship and had a late lunch of steamed Prince Edward Island mussels which probably slept in the Gulf last night.  I couldn’t resist dessert because the chef had bought some PEI cherry pies from the local market this morning.  Oh my, were both very good!

One of the many churches in Charlottetown.  Look at that Carolina blue sky!

I've never seen a house painted this shade, but it would make giving directions easy.

One other thing of note today – I actually got up early enough to see the sun rise!  That doesn’t happen too often, believe me.  So that’s what the world looks like as dawn arrives!

Sunrise over Prince Edward Island