Hawks display hunting skills for students
CHRISTA MELAND The (Gillette) News-Record | Posted: Saturday, December 8, 2007 12:00 am
GILLETTE - Bundled in warm winter clothes, the group formed an almost-straight line and began walking south through the dead grass in search of rabbits.
As they scanned the 1,100-acre Sleepy Hollow site for motion, Kin Quitugua and his three colleagues held four Harris hawks that were hungry for an opportunity to hunt.
As a master falconer and longtime environmental educator, Quitugua wanted the Campbell County High School ecology students to see the birds of prey in action.
He'd just spent an hour describing their hunting and flight patterns. But seeing them firsthand, he assured the students, was incredible.
Minutes passed as students complained about the bitter cold and wondered if their Thursday morning walk would elicit any excitement.
Just then, one student pointed to the east and alerted the group as Quitugua had instructed them.
"Ho, ho, ho."
Quitugua and his colleagues instantly hoisted their arms in the air, releasing the birds, and they took off toward a jackrabbit.
As they descended upon the creature, it jumped straight in the air as if someone had just released a spring. Then, it instinctively bolted, knowing that speed was its major advantage and only hope.
The birds followed for several seconds. But they were too late.
"Awww," the students moaned in unison.
Junior Kyle McGee was particularly disappointed.
"Why didn't they catch it?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter to me whether we catch 'em or not," Quitugua explained. "It matters to me whether we chase 'em."
Most of the 30-some students, including McGee, were largely unfamiliar with birds of prey. But when Arch Coal offered to send educational organization HawkQuest to visit with Mark Winland's ecology classes, the science teacher welcomed the opportunity with open arms - as did his students.
"They're amazing creatures," said senior Chris Johnson. "The one thing that humans can't do on their own is fly."
Throughout the hourlong field outing, the hawks didn't capture any rabbits. But they did chase half a dozen - and students watched in stunned silence each time.
The first sighting, junior Amanda Collins explained, provided the "adrenaline rush of the day." But most agreed that the most amusing scenario was later on: One of the hawks took off in the wrong direction. Another, meanwhile, managed to grab onto the rabbit's hind end before it got away.
Before HawkQuest's visit, Winland's classes had graphed rabbit and hawk populations over time. Their discovery wasn't surprising: When the rabbit population declined, so did the hawk population because it didn't have a regular food source.
But seeing that food chain in its simplest form helped make it seem more real. And Campbell County, Quitugua explained, is the perfect place to study birds.
"You're sitting in rabbit heaven here," he said.
The experience was enough to convince McGee that he may want to work with birds instead of in forests as he had planned to do.
"It's outside, and I'm working with wild animals," he said. "It's a rush being around here and learning about what they do."
Even if the birds didn't catch a rabbit.