Sallie and Zorro
Touching an Alien Mind
Sallie Reynolds
I stood in a meadow, swinging meat on a string.
Whop! Zorro, a young Red-tailed Hawk, slammed down from a tree and whacked me, hard, with his wing. It looked like an attack. It was not. It was a new form of communication. He was saying, as clear as words, “You left me out all night, in the dark. Alone. Scared. HUNGRY!” This was the signal from a wild creature's mind that I'd wanted all my life.
My first close sight of a hawk - I was eleven - was a bird tethered in my science teacher's backyard. She sat, unmoving - huge, regal, eyes covered with a hood - an enfolded power. She was the most wonderful creature I'd ever seen. Soon after, watching hawks soaring, I felt the lift and the wind as though I myself were flying, I was the hawk. This sensation of connection has lasted all my life.
The same teacher, however, told me (it was the 1950s) that humans and wild things are far too different to really connect, so the best I could do was study them in books. I accepted that and eventually became a wildlife rehabilitator and falconer. Working with hawks recuperating from injury, I used the falconer's technique of hunger control to get them to cooperate for a time, tested them in the field, released them. Meanwhile, though, a growing body of research began to suggest that birds, especially the crow family and other social species, possess a far more flexible intelligence than was once suspected. Still the idea that these birds could communicate and cooperate the way highly trained dogs or captive apes do, was widely denied. My child's dream of mutual understanding seemed impossible.
Then Zorro came into my life. He was recovering from West Nile Virus, a killer disease in birds. An avian specialist treated him and sent him to me, aged four months, for hunt training and to monitor his recovery. The usual hunger-control training includes dropping the hawks’ weight, sometimes rapidly, to force them to overcome their natural caution and fly to the falconer. This method can be extreme, and I couldn’t use it with Zorro without compromising his recovery. So where was my tool?
To start, Zorro and I needed a language. We both understood meat, so twice a day I went into his enclosure, gave a soft whistle, and offered him a piece of raw quail on my glove. He was not hungry, but wild creatures will almost always pay attention to food. This way might take a bit longer to get the bird’s trust, but we had time.
To calm Zorro’s fears, I darkened the room, leaving just enough light so he could see the treat. He'd eaten well, so he eyed me warily and didn't move. I left the meat; next morning, it was gone. The second day, we repeated this. The fifth day, in full light, he edged along his perch, and stepped onto my hand - a mere four inches, but what an emotional hurdle! Golden eyes flicking to mine, he bent his head and ate.
In two days, still well-fed, he was flying to my fist in his enclosure. We moved outdoors where, on a long leash called a creance, he made the acquaintance of the lure. I secured meat to a cord and got his attention by pulling it through the grass. He chased it, caught it, ate it. Soon he was flying 100 feet, searching the grass, grabbing with those sharp talons, coming to the glove at my whistle. Whenever I left the house, he'd hear me from the aviary and cry: “Let's go go go!” Before long I was releasing live mice, which he caught with elegant efficiency.
Now the second big test: No leash. Would Zorro follow me as I flushed prey? The falconer's rule is “it takes a hungry hawk to play the human game.” But I hoped he trusted me enough to work with me, fat and sassy as he was. In a nearby meadow, I unclipped the leash. He flew to a tree. I swung the lure. He came down, bolted his tidbit, returned to his tree. I kicked over a stump, a lizard zipped out. Zorro attacked, missed, returned to his tree. It was a variation on our old game. Launching almost before I called out, he dived on scurrying voles. For two hours, we played. Then I whistled. And, glory be! he flew to my glove.
On the next hunt, Zorro made a spectacular catch - a rabbit. He chased it into an old tire, dragged it out - it was more than twice his weight - and crouched over it, glaring: “Mine!” Taking quick shearing bites, he ate practically to bursting before he let me approach. He clutched the leftovers in one powerful foot and we brought it back home.
From December to March, Zorro and I hunted our meadow. He could have left at any time, but the routine, the steady meals – the fun – brought him back, alighting like a breath on the glove. He easily learned my hand signals in addition to the whistle.
By now, most falconers rehabbing a youngster would have released him in an area hopping with juicy critters, monitor for a week or so, and wish him godspeed. Such birds have about a 40% chance of surviving to breeding age – normal for wild first-year raptors. But my covenant with Zorro was not only to help him sharpen his skills but to be sure his disease didn't recur. West Nile Virus recovery can quickly unravel, and the veterinarian wanted me to monitor him throughout his first molt. We were looking at two more months of captivity.
Zorro, however, said no. He got so antsy in the aviary, he was going to hurt himself. I took another risk – hoping he'd continue our relationship, I set him free.
Zorro's meadow has a lovely knoll where a breeze always blows, threaded with rabbit paths, riddled with gopher holes, echoing to the rattle of woodpeckers in the oaks and the throb of frogs in the pond. It looks peaceful, but it's a battleground. He'd learned caution, but alone at night, would he elude the hungry Great Horned Owl? In the heat of the chase, would he fly into the road? Would the wind tempt him away?
It was the next day that he came down and whacked me, starting a new chapter in our saga. Every day I whistled at the gate and swung the lure. Soon he was grabbing tidbits from the ground or catching them in midair. But he no longer ate in front of me. He never touched me again. Our patterns were changing.
Then one day he wasn't there. I returned again and again, whistling, swinging his lure. No Zorro. I was afraid he'd been killed.
Five long days later, my neighbor who owns the meadow phoned: “Your boy is here. In a tree, yelling.” Sure enough, at the meadow gate - Zorro. He stayed around for a month. If he wasn't hungry, he'd perch on a pole and watch me toss treats. He'd follow the arc and waggle his tail – a comedy routine? Clearly food was no longer our main language. These were new, somewhat mysterious communications.
He disappeared often, but always came back. Hawks have an unmatched aerial view and the keenest eyes in the vertebrate world. Zorro found me when he wanted to. But he no longer needed me to survive.
His flight skills were breathtaking. Living in a cage left him a bit wobbly at first, but here he was, doing wing-loops and dives, catching tidbits in midair. He was well-muscled, sleek in his handsome adult feathers. People in our community stopped me on the road to ask about him. This was good; what people are interested in, they're less likely to harm. But he never let them get close.
Next he began to initiate some of our contacts. He recognized my car and once he flew right toward it. Those blazing eyes pierced the windshield and locked, like golden arrows, onto mine. A friend came for a week, and by the end of her visit, Zorro would land right over us. She, my neighbor, and my husband were the only other people to see his aerobatics. Zorro has his druthers!
Then a female appeared in his meadow. I say “female.” Sexing wild hawks is tricky. She was larger, as lady Red-tails normally are. Whenever I showed up, she'd cry and sail away. But she was back again next time. What effect would she have on my relationship with Zorro? And I on theirs?
In winter, hawk romance season, there were some strange goings-on. Once when I went to the gate with hors d'oeuvres, a Red-tail broke cover and flew, crying, down the meadow. It was the lady. A nearer cry, and there was Zorro, in a little evergreen. Then, keeping close, as if for confidence, he flew to a pole and went into serious duet mode. “Keeer-keeer,” he cried. From her perch in a dead tree, “Keeer-keeer,” the lady replied. Was this a prom-night duet? A game of chief-of-the-mountain? They kept up their call-and-response until dark.
The meadow became an arena. When Zorro seemed nervous, I'd spy the female, sometimes with a strange male close by. Zorro, now two years old, was ready for mate and babies and I hoped the lady would accept him. But hawk love is fraught with hormones, conflicts, enigmas. She could easily choose the other male and drive him away. Zorro stopped coming to me. In late February, when local Red-tails begin seriously thinking about eggs and chicks, he vanished.
In March, to my joy, he reappeared. He'd sit in a tree and watch me. In May, he began coming to the gate to snatch a meal, zoom away. He was probably feeding mate and babies, but I wasn't sure until one day in late June, a young Red-tail flew over, carrying the tidbit I'd just tossed Zorro. In the woods, another youngster was calling. I saw not only Zorro, but the female, and heard high-pitched begging cries from the woods. Two youngsters! They seemed to be a normal wild family.
Then on July 19, Zorro did a remarkable thing. He appeared at my house, flew to the top of a pine near his old aviary, and called. In all the months since his release, he'd never come back, though it was only a half mile from his meadow – maybe he remembered being in jail, who knows? But now, here he was, calling urgently. I tossed meat in the driveway. He snatched it and winged away. Seconds later the young hawks set up a clamor. That afternoon, Zorro came again, same tree, same calls. Another hefty hunk of meat, taken away, met with cries from the youngsters. What was going on?
I believe that Zorro's mate died – these devoted parents don't abandon their babies – leaving him with dependents who needed a substantial amount of food and some serious life lessons. He'd known me, trusted me, for two years. He asked for help, and I gave it. For nearly three weeks, he flew to the same tree, morning and afternoon, and accepted food.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it was over. Young hawks normally disperse in the late summer, early fall. They were gone. Zorro stopped coming to the house.
Today Zorro still lives in the area, and has a new lady. In February I saw them mating in the top of a tree. He'll occasionally appear at my whistle, but only to perch at a distance. We seem to be saying, “You're there, I'm here. All's well.” In May, he vanished once more. In mid-June, he was back, accepting an occasional meal. And in July, he began coming to the house, surely feeding young once more. But he wasn't frantic the way he'd been the year before.
We have a new pattern now: he plummets out of the sky, frequently with a battalion of crows on his tail. If I'm not waiting, he might call. I stopped whistling, since that draws his tormentors, but Zorro remembers my hand signals, so I can point to a certain tree and in a moment, he'll drop down and land on the top, like a Christmas-tree angel. Sometimes, he’ll sleep in the oak over our roof. Perhaps he feels safe there from the crows. Or on cool nights, warm from the chimney.
Our vocabulary grows. If I call “Zorro,” a speck might appear in the sky and, in a fiery swoop, he'll perch. Occasionally, he'll hunt gophers in the orchard. He often watches us work in the yard. Though he goes off for a few days, he returns. Every meeting leads to an exchange.
For me, this is an astonishing experience. Communication with a wild being. It is more solid than my sentimental child's dream, more satisfying than my years of study. What it is for Zorro I can't say. I probably won't even know the end of his story. One day - I hope years from now - he will simply be gone.
Until then the door between us is open. Sometimes his eyes slip into mine, and then we share that miracle people tell us is impossible: the meeting of alien minds.
Sallie Reynolds is a writer and editor, a wildlife rehabilitator and educator for more than 20 years. In 2015 she qualified as a falconer in order to work in the field with recuperating hawks. She met Zorro in the autumn of 2016. He is still a frequent visitor at her house.