@iowa_gamehawker’s American Kestrel is named Mango, and Mango is making short work of invasive starlings in these drive-by hits – what a badass bird 🦅 ••• From: @iowa_gamehawker ••• “Mango’s 4th starling catch! It was a long road to get him to understand the game, but since he caught his first one he has not missed a slip. Just in time for spring to bring all of the little invasive birds out for us to chase.
Starlings are an invasive species and not protected by hunting laws. Mango is an American Kestrel trained in the art of falconry. He is a wild bird that will be fed well and released back into the wild this summer when he’s ready!”
Car hawking, or drive-by falconry is a modern falconry technique which relies upon the use of a motor car or other motor vehicle as a base from which to hunt wild quarry species with a trained raptor.
Typically, the falconer will drive around in a car, slowly, seeking suitable small game in the immediate vicinity of the road. Once an appropriate target has been selected, the raptor is then slipped from the window of the moving vehicle as it passes by in order that it might engage with its prey.
Car hawking provides an advantage over more traditional methods of falconry in that the hawk is already moving at a considerable speed, with added momentum upon exiting the vehicle and as the car acts as cover, it has an enormous element of surprise over the quarry, giving it little or no time to react and potentially escape.[citation needed] Numerous videos exist on the internet of people successfully utilizing this method, flying Harris hawks, goshawks and other small raptors such as American Kestrels against feral pigeons and corvids in both urban and rural areas.
Legality of this practice varies by location and protected status of the quarry and some falconers consider car hawking to be extremely unsporting.[1]
This is what my friend Bruce H. calls “ugly falconry.” There is no doubt about that. Car hawking lacks almost every inherent virtue of sport, save that it can be a lot of fun and provide bagsful of food for a hawk. While I have had much fun doing this myself and have filled many bags with starlings and sparrows over the years, I can’t pretend that this method of hunting meets my own standards of beauty and sport; it is merely simple and successful. Provided that I don’t ever (or again) confuse this expedient with proper falconry, I will probably continue to hawk starlings from the car when necessary to keep the larder full.