Falconry World

Photo by Mark Williams

In the last post, we featured images of Joe Atkinson at the NAFA Meet in November, along with some amazing shots of his golden eagle in flight.
We showed the first picture in a sequence from the slide show, where his eagle is chasing a rabbit. For those of you who have seen the photographs on the Marshall site, you’ll know just how amazing the shots are, and how rare this kind of thing is to capture on film. For those of you who haven’t yet seen the slide show - get over there! After our post yesterday, Joe kindly emailed us with some back story about his eagle.

He writes:

“Thank you for showing my eagles on your website. We had a wonderful time at the NAFA meet as well as the IEAA’s Gathering of Eagles meet the week before. I am particularly proud of the shots of our young male golden eagle “Mini-Me” shown just missing the jack rabbit. You might find it interesting to know that he was found as a downey chick with his leg broken in two places and his back broken leaving him paralyzed. A very skilled veterinarian did some experimental surgery on him and, low and behold, one day Mini-Me stood up! Mini-Me (MM) was, to say the least, a full on imprint with a very healthy hatred of people, having been poked and prodded his entire young life.
MM was placed in a large flight pen and was clumsily learning to fly but showing great improvement daily. Once MM gained enough flight abilities he promptly started to attack any and all humans that dared enter his flight.
He was then placed with us to see if anything could be done with him and to further evaluate his condition. My first encounter with MM was to have him fly right at my face, slamming into the netting, trying to foot me! I have since gained his trust and channelled his aggression toward jack rabbits. These two falconry meets were MM’s first road trip and he did wonderfully. The jack in the picture actually spun out in the soft dirt and did a somersault, saving it from MM.

Joe Atkinson
Vale Oregon”

Looking at the pictures and the birds performance you would never guess how the eagle started out in life. I’d say it’s not just the pictures that Joe has to be proud about, wonderful handling, training and keeping are all evident and I’m guessing that when the birds a golden eagle, that’s not easily done!
For more information on Joe and his eagle visit his site, Joe Atkinson’s Eagle Journal