Falcon Back Home After International Fling Retrieval Becomes Expensive As Owner Picks Up Border Tabs
Love was in the air for a Washington state-trained falcon, so she flew the coop.
The female peregrine-gyr hybrid disappeared from Dave Foley’s Mount Vernon, Wash., home Feb. 18, after it “fell in love” with a wild gyr falcon and started chasing it.
A finger-nail-sized transmitter attached to his falcon allowed Foley to track the bird for 435 miles as it flew in circles around Mount Vernon for a couple of days.
Then he lost contact, although the wild gyr falcon returned to the area.
Two weeks later, an SPCA officer netted the bird in a downtown Victoria alley as it was dining on pigeon.
Foley, who had given up the bird for dead, was tracked down through a band on its leg.
But retrieving the falcon, looked after by a local veterinarian, was nothing compared to getting the necessary papers to take the bird back across the border.
Foley said he racked up more than $200 in phone calls and more than $100 in fees for three different permits to get the falcon home.
Foley and the falcon returned to the United States on Friday.
He has renewed plans to use the bird in a show to demonstrate how falcons dive for their prey at speeds of more than 120 miles an hour.
The falcon, bred in captivity, is hand-fed on pigeons and duck.
It was during a training exercise that the 2-1/2-year-old female flew off after the gyr falcon.
“She’s going through a hormonal change,” Foley said. “I think she thought she was in hog heaven.”