Parahawking: Skydiving With Hawks
(YouTube Link)
Parahawking involves skydiving while specially-trained birds of prey swarm around you, including vultures, eagles, and falcons. It’s available in Nepal courtesy of a bird rescue group called Himalayan Raptor Rescue. Hypothetically, it should lead to a superior paragliding experience:
Birds of prey have a natural instinct to conserve energy wherever and whenever possible. During a flight, a bird will burn more energy than it would if it was just sitting in a tree, this means it has to eat to replace the used energy. Sometimes birds will travel long distances to find food. To conserve energy whilst flying, birds of prey use thermals. Thermals are rising currents of warm air that are created by the sun heating the ground. Birds can gain height and travel long distances without flapping their wings by using thermals. Paragliders also use thermals when they are flying and will often use wild birds to guide them to where the thermals are. Our trained birds are no different, they will find the thermals in order to stay aloft and conserve energy whilst flying. We as paragliders harness their ability to conserve energy by following them as we fly.
Our birds need to be rewarded for guiding us into the thermals. During the flight the passenger will place small morsels of meat onto his gloved hand, the birds will come and gently land on the hand to take the food, and then gracefully fly away to find the next thermal. A perfect symbiotic relationship.
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David vs. Goliath, the Avian Version
When scientist Pat Gaines heard a scream of a hawk while at Bonny Lake State Park in the Colorado and Kansas border, he looked up to see this amazing spectacle: a kingbird relentlessly attacking a red-tailed hawk several times its size!
Gaines had focused his camera on one red-tailed hawk because the bird had been screaming. As he followed the hawk across the sky, a kingbird dive-bombed the hawk.
The hawk, which is not a predator of the kingbird, flew as fast as it could from the kingbird. For a moment it appeared the kingbird had stopped attacking. But then it began the pursuit again and — to Gaines amazement — landed on the hapless red-tail’s back.
“He rode the hawk for 25 yards. The hawk was not trying to fight back — it was just trying to get out of there,” said Gaines.
As the kingbird rode bareback on the hawk, it pecked away at the hawk’s head.
“They (the kingbirds) are not afraid of anything,” said Gaines. “Until this happened, I had never seen one perch on a hawk’s back.”
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Waiter, There's a Hawk in My Soup!
David William of And I Am Not Lying For Real blog was having a nice lunch when a hawk flew into where he was eating and landed on his food:
I was sitting at a window seat next to the open door, and my food had just been brought out. I looked down to see this guy (or gal – I don’t know hawks) just standing in the doorway, looking back and forth. After surveying the place for a few seconds, it flapped its way in and up onto one of the empty tables. [...]
The hawk just sat there for a little while, getting jerk BBQ sauce all over its talons and looking all emo, until it was spooked by the restaurant’s delivery guy walking in, whereupon it shot past all of us into the kitchen.
The counter guy, the delivery guy and I heard a few pots clanging as we debated calling animal control versus just trying to shoo it back out the door, when one of the cooks who was back there caught the hawk with his bare hands, and walked it back outside.“What restaurant was this?”
I am so glad that you asked.
The place is called, I kid you not… “BIRDIE’S”.
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Hawks Eye View
[YouTube - Link]
Stunning footage from a small camera strapped to a hawk in flight. The swooping dive at the end is mind boggling!
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Steampunk Chicken ... er, Hawk Flying Helmet
Photo: brucethelesser [deviantART]
Today, the question of which is the most awesome steampunk gear has been conclusively answered: Behold the Steampunk Hawkman flying helmet by deviantART user brucethelesser.
Here is a picture of the Hawkman’s flying helmet, goggles and mask.
Costuming Tip: Look closely at the crest feathers. When any decent light falls on them they look like shards of glass. To achieve this affect back paint thin cheap plastic (microscope slides) with translucent paint and metallic pigments and stick them together. you now have your shards of bottle glass and the paint can’t flake off since there sandwiched between two layers of plastic. Additionally there is no danger of shattered glass on the floor if the "feathers" get hit.
The mask is made of wonderflex, a themo-formable plastic.
Bravo, Bruce, bravo! Link – via Brass Googles
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