5 ms·

A day with the squirrel hawkers of East Texas

50 points by samclemens 5y ago

AlbertCory 5y ago
Too early in the morning. I read "squirrel hawkers" and thought of "hawker stalls" in Singapore, which have nothing to do with hawks. "A vendor of squirrels?" OK.
- MandieD 5y ago
  To be fair, I also saw that headline and thought “guys going around selling squirrels they had caught/shot,” and half my family is from East Texas!
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    Patent Hell! Marshall, Tyler, all those places I never had to go for a trial, although other tech assistants did.
telesilla 5y ago
H for Hawk, mentioned here, made me fall in love with the idea and at the same time, know that I should never have a falcon. Intense commitment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_is_for_Hawk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_is_for_Hawk
willyt 5y ago
‘A kestrel for a knave’ is another great novel on this theme. It was made into a film ‘Kes’ I’ve not seen it though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kestrel_for_a_Knave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kestrel_for_a_Knave
zoomablemind 5y ago
"...Unlike at other, similar hunts, these full days of hawking did not culminate in family-style meals; there were no hunters stirring pots of gamey stew or smothering their chicken-fried squirrels in cream gravy..." I'm trying to understand if this really means the hunters do eat squirrels on other occasions? How is it chicken-fried? Btw, the other day I was a surprised observer of a large grey bird trying to snatch a live squirrel righ off a relatively busy kids playground. I thought it was an owl, now think it could've been some transient hawk. The attack was unsuccessful, the brave rodent waved just in time to evade, then busily continued its foraging... Wonder how a big-city squirrel can acquire a pray-bird evasion skills or this knowledge is somehow hereditary?
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Hawks are not that uncommon in urban land, even Manhattan has a handful hawks. Many tactics for avoiding predators are indeed taught from parent to child. I know it's true for bunnies, so I'd guess squirrels are no different. However, even without any prior training, imagine if you yourself saw a giant bird of prey (bigger than you) coming at you from above, you'd probably do your best to get the heck out of the way, wouldn't you?
  - zoomablemind 5y ago
    What was really amazing is that the squirrel did not run away and up a tree like it does when encountering a dog. Just waved a few inches side to side and just kept very much on the same spot were it was foraging the instant the bird attacked, like another day in the office. Such a badass squirrel indeed!
    - clairity 5y ago
      that doesn’t always work. i once hit a squirrel with a football that i was sure it was going to dodge. but after scampering back and forth, it dodged right into the path of the football at the last moment. it didn’t appear to be hurt, and scurried away afterwards, but i still felt really bad about it.
      - a1369209993 5y ago
        > but after scampering back and forth, it dodged right into the path of the football at the last moment. Note that (like many evolved things) squirrel behaviour is designed around a actively adversarial environment. (It may or may not have had a explicit mental model of the process, but from a behavioural perspective) it was likely expecting the football^Wnovel bird of prey to course-correct towards it, in which case lunging in the opposite direction that the attacker just expended effort accellerating toward gives it the best chances of getting away. (Or something along those lines, I don't know enough details to be particularly sure.)
jccalhoun 5y ago
A pair of red shouldered hawks have nested near me this summer and it has been really fun to see them flying around or perched up in trees or once the fence outside my bedroom. They are loud though.
- clairity 5y ago
  i was mesmerized just yesterday by a hawk circling lazily over my LA neighborhood and crying out in regular intervals (the same piercing call from a western or historical wuxia film). i couldn’t tell if it was distressed, hunting, or just being a hawk.
fmakunbound 5y ago
Backyard apricot tree owner here. I thoroughly approve of this.
- trhway 5y ago
  and i'm not. I like how squirrels come harvest the persimmons, carry them around, find convenient place and munch on it.
CamperBob2 5y ago
TIL that killing animals for no reason at all is OK, as long as you do it with a trained exotic bird and not with a gun.
- finiteseries 5y ago
  These chickenhawks are about the least exotic birds imaginable in this part of the world FWIW. Hobbies like this typically result from spending absurd amounts of time outdoors in the first place, that some of those most attuned to their local environments have turned themselves symbiont with the neighborhood apex predators is quite beautiful, and closer to where we should be headed imo.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  It's perfectly OK with both a bird and a gun. As well as bow and arrow. Falconry is the oldest sport in history, dating back at least 6000 years. Thousands of years ago, men hunted with raptors -- falcons, hawks, owls, and sometimes even eagles. They would catch young falcons in the wild, spend years training them, live with their birds, then release them, using signals from hundreds of feet away to coordinate the hunt, and then split the hunt with the bird. Today, they usually give all of it to the bird, nevertheless it's still a beautiful and noble sport in which man and bird work together to catch prey. Fun Fact: Falcons are used in public parks and golf courses to chase away nuisance birds. It's also used by farmers -- more effective than scarecrows. There is a long apprenticeship required and a centuries old system of knowledge and training. The most famous book is called "The Modern Apprentice". It's a worth a read even if you don't practice falconry. http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm Here is the CA club: https://www.calhawkingclub.org/falconry-apprenticeship/apprentice-bookshelf https://www.calhawkingclub.org/falconry-apprenticeship/appre... Each state has its own regulations for falconry as it does for all other forms of hunting.
- gamache 5y ago
  > Every squirrel she kills is gradually fed back to her.

50 points by samclemens 5y ago

Too early in the morning. I read "squirrel hawkers" and thought of "hawker stalls" in Singapore, which have nothing to do with hawks. "A vendor of squirrels?" OK.

MandieD 5y ago
To be fair, I also saw that headline and thought “guys going around selling squirrels they had caught/shot,” and half my family is from East Texas!
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Patent Hell! Marshall, Tyler, all those places I never had to go for a trial, although other tech assistants did.

telesilla 5y ago

H for Hawk, mentioned here, made me fall in love with the idea and at the same time, know that I should never have a falcon. Intense commitment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_is_for_Hawk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_is_for_Hawk

willyt 5y ago

‘A kestrel for a knave’ is another great novel on this theme. It was made into a film ‘Kes’ I’ve not seen it though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kestrel_for_a_Knave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kestrel_for_a_Knave

zoomablemind 5y ago

"...Unlike at other, similar hunts, these full days of hawking did not culminate in family-style meals; there were no hunters stirring pots of gamey stew or smothering their chicken-fried squirrels in cream gravy..." I'm trying to understand if this really means the hunters do eat squirrels on other occasions? How is it chicken-fried? Btw, the other day I was a surprised observer of a large grey bird trying to snatch a live squirrel righ off a relatively busy kids playground. I thought it was an owl, now think it could've been some transient hawk. The attack was unsuccessful, the brave rodent waved just in time to evade, then busily continued its foraging... Wonder how a big-city squirrel can acquire a pray-bird evasion skills or this knowledge is somehow hereditary?

forgotmypw17 5y ago
Hawks are not that uncommon in urban land, even Manhattan has a handful hawks. Many tactics for avoiding predators are indeed taught from parent to child. I know it's true for bunnies, so I'd guess squirrels are no different. However, even without any prior training, imagine if you yourself saw a giant bird of prey (bigger than you) coming at you from above, you'd probably do your best to get the heck out of the way, wouldn't you?
- zoomablemind 5y ago
  What was really amazing is that the squirrel did not run away and up a tree like it does when encountering a dog. Just waved a few inches side to side and just kept very much on the same spot were it was foraging the instant the bird attacked, like another day in the office. Such a badass squirrel indeed!
  - clairity 5y ago
    that doesn’t always work. i once hit a squirrel with a football that i was sure it was going to dodge. but after scampering back and forth, it dodged right into the path of the football at the last moment. it didn’t appear to be hurt, and scurried away afterwards, but i still felt really bad about it.
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      > but after scampering back and forth, it dodged right into the path of the football at the last moment. Note that (like many evolved things) squirrel behaviour is designed around a actively adversarial environment. (It may or may not have had a explicit mental model of the process, but from a behavioural perspective) it was likely expecting the football^Wnovel bird of prey to course-correct towards it, in which case lunging in the opposite direction that the attacker just expended effort accellerating toward gives it the best chances of getting away. (Or something along those lines, I don't know enough details to be particularly sure.)

jccalhoun 5y ago

A pair of red shouldered hawks have nested near me this summer and it has been really fun to see them flying around or perched up in trees or once the fence outside my bedroom. They are loud though.

clairity 5y ago
i was mesmerized just yesterday by a hawk circling lazily over my LA neighborhood and crying out in regular intervals (the same piercing call from a western or historical wuxia film). i couldn’t tell if it was distressed, hunting, or just being a hawk.

fmakunbound 5y ago

Backyard apricot tree owner here. I thoroughly approve of this.

trhway 5y ago
and i'm not. I like how squirrels come harvest the persimmons, carry them around, find convenient place and munch on it.

CamperBob2 5y ago

TIL that killing animals for no reason at all is OK, as long as you do it with a trained exotic bird and not with a gun.

finiteseries 5y ago
These chickenhawks are about the least exotic birds imaginable in this part of the world FWIW. Hobbies like this typically result from spending absurd amounts of time outdoors in the first place, that some of those most attuned to their local environments have turned themselves symbiont with the neighborhood apex predators is quite beautiful, and closer to where we should be headed imo.
rsj_hn 5y ago
It's perfectly OK with both a bird and a gun. As well as bow and arrow. Falconry is the oldest sport in history, dating back at least 6000 years. Thousands of years ago, men hunted with raptors -- falcons, hawks, owls, and sometimes even eagles. They would catch young falcons in the wild, spend years training them, live with their birds, then release them, using signals from hundreds of feet away to coordinate the hunt, and then split the hunt with the bird. Today, they usually give all of it to the bird, nevertheless it's still a beautiful and noble sport in which man and bird work together to catch prey. Fun Fact: Falcons are used in public parks and golf courses to chase away nuisance birds. It's also used by farmers -- more effective than scarecrows. There is a long apprenticeship required and a centuries old system of knowledge and training. The most famous book is called "The Modern Apprentice". It's a worth a read even if you don't practice falconry. http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm Here is the CA club: https://www.calhawkingclub.org/falconry-apprenticeship/apprentice-bookshelf https://www.calhawkingclub.org/falconry-apprenticeship/appre... Each state has its own regulations for falconry as it does for all other forms of hunting.
gamache 5y ago
> Every squirrel she kills is gradually fed back to her.