<waves> hi Xema! 
That story about your friend’s kestrel–I hear sometimes about hawks coming back around when returning from a migratory season, hoping for another year’s worth of good hunting. Free-hacked birds, especially.
Cursed double posts ><
Thanks, and a new question based on your new license. As you’ve mentioned, after you trap a bird, you must man him or her and then establish a working relationship. How does this work with birds that are transferred from one falconer (or rehabber) to another? You mentioned somewhere that the birds will tolerate contact from their handler that the won’t tolerate from another person. So do you have to completely re-man a transferred bird, or do you start over somewhere else in the training process? Is it common that a transferred bird simply refuses to work with a new falconer?
Generally speaking it’s not terribly difficult to transfer a bird. The major foundations for everything have already been laid, so mostly it’s just getting acquainted and establishing the same working relationship. They’re all different, and some species are more difficult to work with than others, but a good RTH who has been handled by anyone halfway capable will pretty much just pick right up where they left off with the last person. There’s some “team-building” time of course, but you definitely don’t start over from scratch.
I can’t say that it’s common for a bird to just flat refuse to work with a person for no apparent reason. It’s possible they’re displeased with some major difference in the situation, like hunting over an unfamiliar dog or something, but we’ve been doing this so long as a species that if you do your job capably, the hawk should respond in very predictable ways. This is the oldest field sport known to man–it’s been practiced in precisely the same way with the same language, equipment, and techniques for at least four thousand years of recorded history. So long as you are diligent in your practices and have some affinity for working with… “interesting” animals*, the results should be reasonably predictable, if that makes sense. The hawks don’t change.
Not all birds are suited to being falconry birds, and not all people are suited to be falconers, but generally, I’d expect if a bird has proved a capable gamehawk in one falconer’s hands, they’ll likely be equally capable with another handler.
Now, that having been said, it does absolutely happen that a bird might not take to one person or another, but in general a good falconry bird is a good falconry bird–it’s the falconer’s responsibility to prove capable to the bird. The bird doesn’t adapt to the handler, we work within their parameters. If a bird isn’t responding to me, it’s my job to figure out why and change my behavior accordingly.
ETA: At the raptor center where I volunteered, we had a handful of birds that would only “allow” a small number of people to handle them–in particular, a Harris’ Hawk named Rosa and a Ferruginous named Thor. Neither of them were particularly amiable birds, and most people wouldn’t handle them, but I don’t think that was the birds’ fault, if that makes sense. The few of us who got along with those birds did so just because we weren’t intimidated by them, I think. I mean, I’m sure there’s some level of affinity there (and I feel like I’m starting to ramble, but…) for the job, but the hawk just does what hawks do, they don’t “like” or “dislike” people. We’re moderately useful furniture to them. If the hawk isn’t working with you, mostly it’s because you’re failing to be useful enough.
*I like Hagrid’s style
I think in the Harry Crews novel I mentioned, the protagonist mentions owls. IIRC, says physically they would be awesome to hunt - muffled feathers, powerful talons, but personality/intellectually they are lacking - I don’t recall, possibly stubborn or something.
Do you have any idea why people don’t hunt owls?
Ha! Yes, that’s a perfect example of falconers having to adapt to a bird’s hunting parameters. There’s a common perception in the falconry world that owls are stupid, that they just don’t “get it”.
Personally, I think it’s more an issue that all our techniques, not to mention our (human) hunting patterns are all adapted to working with diurnal raptors. Owls hunt with hearing as their primary sense, so in that regard it’s very difficult for a human to be of much use to them. Also, it’s generally illegal to hunt at night, or damned inconvenient. Diurnal falconers using diurnal hunting techniques established for use with visually-oriented predators don’t have much success with owls. A few people use them here and there, but it’s definitely something that takes a particular interest and affinity to pull off. Most people chalk it up to owls being dumb, but I rather think they’re simply very specialized predators, and with the right situation I bet they’d make a ferocious hunting partner. Great Horned Owls are called the “tiger in the sky”; they will take on just about anything, and are a serious threat to a hunting hawk on the ground with prey. They are tremendously powerful and have a massive wingspan–they can move double or triple their body weight in a vertical lift off the ground, easily five or six times what a hawk or falcon is capable of.
I am totally fascinated with GHOs. I’d love to someday have the time to put into figuring out exactly how they tick.
Well, maybe she just decided this living with people thing was a lot easier than working for a living 
I’ve been wondering over the past few days if humans practicing falconry might have affected the species. After all, a hawk tolerant of human handling can gain a year or two of reliable food and shelter which for a young and inexperienced bird can mean the difference between life and death. Such tolerant birds might be more likely to survive long enough to reproduce, which means an genetic basis for that tolerance would also be more likely to be passed on. But 4,000 years isn’t very long for that sort of change, and it wouldn’t apply to North American raptors, who haven’t had that long history of falconry.
I’ve also been thinking about what you’ve said about the differences between RTH’s and bald eagles. I fly out of rural airfields where hawks are a fairly common sight - the flat, open spaces of airports don’t provide a lot of hiding scrub for prey species, but at the same time don’t have a lot of human traffic over most of the area. Red tails hunt at airports all the time. They also usually have the sense to stay away from the big noisy things. Usually. I’ve also had red tails attack, or at least threaten, small aircraft I’m flying. Usually the hawk is pretty obviously hunting and is disturbed by the airplane, which the hawk then charges/dives at with talons extended. Awesome but not necessarily pleasant sight to have your windshield filling up with enraged hawk. Even less pleasant if you’re flying open cockpit and the talons are coming at your head. Red tails also sometimes expect YOU to get out of THEIR way. Around an airport they seem to adapt to the normal airplane traffic patterns and stay out of them - perhaps they think that airspace is airplane territory - but if you are outside of that pattern and in space they consider “theirs” they may let you know how unhappy they are.
Anyhow, when I flew out of Morris, Illinois we had plenty of red tails hanging around airport, generally ignoring the airplanes while staying out of their way. Sometimes you’d be flying and look out to the side and see one flying alongside - they might give you a glance then go back to ignoring you and about their own business. Recently, a pair of bald eagles started nesting in that area. I know balds are normally considered fish eaters, and Morris is located near a sizable river, but it sure looked like this one was hunting over fields. I don’t see any reason they couldn’t take rabbits or the like if they chose to. Anyhow, airplanes were flying by and taking a look. Now, we were all keeping our distance, as required both to not run afoul of laws protecting eagles but also because you don’t want to run into a bird with a small airplane. You don’t want to hit a chickadee, much less an eagle. Anyhow, this eagle was a LOT less nonchalant about sharing the sky than the hawks were. It kept looking back over its shoulder or off to the side, clearly feeling a need to examine every airplane with some care. Even though we were much further away than we normally were from the local hawks, the eagle was clearly not comfortable with the situation. After a week or so the eagle wasn’t seen that close to the airport again, we assume (since the pair successfully fledged their offspring that year) that it went to hunt elsewhere.
Which would be entirely consistent with what you’ve said about the temperaments of the different species.
No, much too small to affect the population in that way, but it has been demonstrated that falconry has a net positive effect on the wild raptor census. We only trap juvenile birds which in all likelihood wouldn’t survive the first year anyway, feeding and keeping them in peak condition throughout the difficult passage year. Birds released after a season as a falconry bird have much, much higher chances of making it into the breeding population, and living a long and reproductively fruitful life. 