The diversity of the species...and how animals interact with human beings...
I thought this thread would be a unique opportunity to share our observations regarding the animal kingdom...
Its greatness -- and how humans and animals can function together in a beautiful symbiosis, like a rider and a horse moving in one in a dressage ring...at once exhibiting strength, beauty and grace...
There is a video at the link as well...of the falcon keeper explaining the program...
Falcons help keep clear skies over McGuire Air Force Base
by Tomas Dinges/The Star-Ledger Sunday April 19, 2009, 9:56 PM
A four-engine C-17 transport plane took off from McGuire Air Force Base and banked slow and low across the budding trees and green farmland of Burlington County. Minutes later, a white jet angled steeply into the hazy sky. The pace of four take-offs every 20 minutes was routine at McGuire.
But there is another aircraft lurking nearby. It weighs one-and-a-half-pounds, carries an impressive set of three-quarter-inch black talons and can reach speeds of 200 mph in an aerial attack.
The weapon is a gray Peale's peregrine falcon named Nantucket. He is one of 10 falcons who live at McGuire as part of an Air Force program to protect military aircraft from one of the greatest risks they face -- bird strikes.
The January crash landing of a commercial plane in the Hudson River due to Canada geese reminded the public of how dangerous bird strikes can be.
The falcon's job is to police the skies around McGuire during the day to frighten and in some cases chase and attack potentially dangerous flocks.
The birds pose a peril because of the possibility they could get sucked into jet engines and cause crashes. Nantucket and his fellow fliers are part of McGuire's Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard Prevention program, or BASH.
Other bird-prevention techniques include keeping grass short, reducing pools of water and harassment with dogs, pyrotechnics and false distress calls. But Thomas Diveley, chief of safety at McGuire Air Force Base says, "The ultimate weapon are the falcons themselves."
"The birds never become not fearful" of them, Diveley said. "The instinct for them is to escape and escape quickly."
Herring gulls, Canada geese, sparrows and other bird species like to consider the open grass of the airfield and sheltering trees along the base border as their hangout, a refuge before a storm, a resting spot for the night, or even a permanent home.
Flying from the Atlantic shore to the Delaware River, or along one of the two north-south migration routes that converge near McGuire, birds of all types are tempted to stop.
In a worst-case scenario, they could get sucked into one of the three or four 6.5-foot-wide jet engines thrusting McGuire's fleet into the sky, which include the largest transport and refueling aircraft in the military.
There's also the risk that they hit a windshield or the leading edge of a wing. The Air Force realized this in 1995 after geese caused a $180 million AWACS electronic eavesdropping plane to crash upon takeoff in Alaska and kill all 24 passengers. The last time a bird strike caused significant damage to an aircraft at McGuire was in 1994, according to base officials.
Recent Federal Aviation Administration data show an increase in collisions between planes and geese and other large birds from an average of 323 per year in the 1990s to 524 a year between 2000 and 2007, a jump of 62 percent, according to information obtained by USA Today.
Andrew Barnes, 43, operates the BASH program at McGuire along with one other person. The company he works for, Falcon Environmental Services, also works at a California Air Force base, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and multiple military and civilian airports in Canada. Interest surged in hiring his company after the accident in the Hudson River but has since waned, he said.
The use of falcons for bird strike prevention is a labor-intensive method that is used primarily at military bases and at just a few commercial airports.
Falcon Environmental Services raises and trains between five and 10 falcons in a small captive breeding area in Toms River and a larger outfit in California. They breed both Peale's and Anatum species of peregrine, and a larger Gyr/Saker species, which is used for the larger prey.
Barnes breeds his own falcons for hunting in New Jersey. As a teenager he learned to fly peregrine falcons while hunting for small-game birds named Francolins outside of his hometown of Harare, Zimbabwe. In 2000 he arrived to the United States and began working at John F. Kennedy airport for Falcon Environmental Services.
At McGuire, the base staff call Barnes the falconer.
"Permission to fly falcon, taxiway Lima," Barnes said to the McGuire radio control tower, which refers to him as Talon 2, as he drove onto the airfield.
On the low grass between a concrete tarmac filled with 12 KC-10 and C-17 refueling and cargo planes and the taxiway, Barnes slowly swung a foot-long lure on a long nylon cord into the 20-mile-per-hour breeze as Nantucket circled low, going increasingly higher with each pass.
Between 30 and 50 feet the bird has a clear view of the entire airfield, and potential prey have a view of him. He dove at the lure with stiff wings. The lure, and the food associated with capturing it, keeps the falcon coming back to his falconer, said Barnes.
Attached to the falcon's ankle were an identification band and a foot-long radio antenna that whistled in the wind as he passed. In the case that Nantucket loses sight of the lure and flies off, the antenna has a 25-mile line-of-sight tracking radius to make an attempt to recapture him.
On this day, there were no flocks of sparrows or resting Canada geese to redirect or pursue. After about 20 minutes, Nantucket circled to about 30 feet above the ground, made a pass at the lure that Barnes laid to rest on the ground and settled.
Barnes fed the prepared game to his falcon with blood-stained fingers of his right-hand. He didn't say a word. The yellow glove on Barnes left hand, known as a gauntlet, is made out of dense elk-leather and he has used it for seven years. Nantucket took his familiar perch. Barnes grasped Nantucket's tail feathers lightly and smoothed them out to preen them.
Falcons have their limits. They couldn't have prevented the Hudson River bird strike, which occurred at a higher altitude, nor can they take down turkey vultures, which are higher up on the food chain, said Barnes. But, their use is still the most effective tool at airports.
"If you see a shark swimming in the ocean," said Barnes, "you get out of the ocean. The same applies to the birds."
http://www.nj.com/news/mustsee/index.ssf/2...lear_skies.html