Winter Sports
pigeons any harm, you just want them to go somewhere else!”
groundsman, you like nature, and you always have to work with the way things are. My instinct - and I’m sure that of all groundsmen - is not to wish
“Being a Graham with former Twickers’ winger Rio
so it’s a serious investment. Graham works for Tonbridge- based pest control firm Hawkforce, which has specialised in this kind of service for over five years countrywide. He is a professional falconer, one of sixteen which operate for Hawkforce, and owns a number of Harris Hawks for such work and his own hunting hobby. He also introduced me to Rio, another lady and an older bird whose place on the wing at Twickers has passed to Binki. She looked at home there though, and seemed to talk a good game. Why are they all ladies, I ask? “Males are a third smaller,” says Graham, “their natural quarry is smaller and they’re not cut out for pest control work.”
The pigeon pest is perpetual. They nest and lay eggs year round. There is no respite, and Twickenham, Graham’s favourite assignment, is no different. “You just have to keep at it,” he says. The Harris Hawk, native to the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, is the bird of prey most used for this type of pigeon control. Its nature, reliable and non- aggressive, makes it ideal for scaring, not attacking. Binki, like all Harris Hawks, took six to eight weeks to train. They are very easy- going and pick up the training very easily, Graham tells me. I watch Binki as she roosts on the
44 PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013 Keith Kent
germination lights gantries then flies to Graham periodically as he walks around the pitch perimeter.
“The Harris Hawk is a very social
bird,” says Graham. “In the wild, they live in family groups. Binki, like all of her breed in the UK, was bred here, but they very much retain their natural characteristics. She regards me as part of her family group, as a parent and food source.” As her source of food, she watches Graham constantly. You can see where the expression “like a hawk” comes from. Graham tells me that the routine of walking around the pitch perimeter is perfect for the discipline trained into the bird. Wherever he goes she follows. He calls it ‘following on’. Binki knows that Graham has food and she keeps him in her sights constantly. Every now and again he gets food from his shoulder bag, puts it on his glove and she flies to him at once. Hawkforce has a no kill policy, and Graham successfully scares the pigeon intruders with no harm done.
The more varied a Harris Hawk’s diet the better. Day old chicks, mice, quail, supplemented every now and again by little bits of fresh chicken or beef. Graham must have an interesting freezer! The key to a successful bird, he tells me, is its weight. Every day, before he starts work, he weighs each of his five birds. Each one has an optimum band in which it is most responsive. It’s a bit like our body mass index. If a bird gets too heavy, it’s not going to return to the falconer so readily and, therefore,
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