A flurry of feathers and talons, and a Harris’s hawk swoops down on my outstretched hand, plundering the morsels of uncooked meat sandwiched between my gloved fingers. The surprisingly gentle fowl tosses it into the air and throws it down. Then turning my hand, it was gone, again into the treetops. I stay in awe of the magnificent, sharp-eyed raptors of the American Southwest.
“You’ll be able to see birds of prey at different amenities, however you possibly can’t deal with them, and we actually wished folks to have that have,” says Jeff Curtis, the Biltmore’s grasp falconer.
Asheville’s historic properties and resorts appeal to 1.4 million guests every year, a lot of them drawn to its gilded structure and splendid previous. However I am right here to expertise the artwork of falconry, a 6,000-year-old searching custom second solely to raptor searching.
Curtis and his assistant, Samantha Bristow, introduced a couple of birds for our group to satisfy and be taught to deal with, earlier than taking them to hunt within the woods above the Biltmore Inn, on the property’s 8,000 acres. Sam Adams is their Harris’s hawk, a curiously social fowl of prey that indicators the presence of prey with its lengthy, white tail feathers. Standing on my glove, its unfocused gaze tracked the swift flight of a small fowl from me to the bushes and to the sky. It’s a fraction of his talent. A hawk like Sam Adams can sense a mouse three soccer fields away. They slice via their beaks, but it surely’s these talons I’ve to be careful for. They’re 10 instances stronger than a human handshake.
Bristow launched the second fowl, a red-shouldered hawk. I raised my hand, gripping the flesh tightly between my fingers, and watched—breath held—because it lunged at me. Falconry could also be an historical sport of kings, but it surely’s simply as fascinating to this twenty first century newcomer.
This text appeared within the Summer time 2024 concern of Southbound.
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