Just a man and a bird, having a good time. I got such a kick out of watching this I just had to share:
Nice!
Thank my husband - he had that set up on the computer for me when I got home form work as a visual goody.
I first saw this for real, in Nepal in the hills above Pokhara. Wonder if that’s the origin? It’s beautiful.
Nice stuff but what caught my attention is that I don’t think I have ever seen a bird sitting on something in motion.
Am I right or not?
The bird is a Harris Hawk, trained for falconry - you can see the jesses (leather straps around the ankles) in some shots. Harris Hawks are southwest birds that are popular for falconry, in no small part because pairs will hunt cooperatively.
Being a trained bird, it knows how to take food “from the fist” and clearly has no objection to doing so while that fist is in motion.
It look as if much of this was shot at Torrey Pines, north of San Diego.
Since hawks normally pursue prey that’s in motion it doesn’t surprise me they can land on something in motion - if you stop and think about it, it’s part of their natural repertoire. It’s just that this one is landing on a guy who’s flying a parasail instead of another bird.
For that matter, my pet parrots have no problem flying to a landing on the shoulder of someone in motion, not even my sister when she’s running away screaming “Get it off me!, Get it OFF me!”. Actually, they seem to think all the noise and flailing arms are extra happy fun stuff.
Do the parrots say ‘Get it off me!, Get it OFF me!’ now?
No. They say “Come here.”
No, really, the conure actually says that.
But it would be funny if he said “Get it OFF me!”.
You need to do it more. 
An interesting detail in this video is the views it gives of the hawk’s alula in action. This is a sort of “thumb” halfway out the wing that deploys like a slat at high angles of attack. A good view appears at 0:29.
That is SUCH a cool video. Thank you for sharing it!
This is an amazing video. In spite of my insane fear of heights, I’ve always wanted to parasail (flying doesn’t count as heights in the mix of my mind), and whenever I see hawks flying, I can’t help but stop and watch. I think I just added something to my bucket list.