Flamstead hawk finds forever home with falconer
A Harris's hawk which terrorised a village for at least a month has found a forever home with a local falconer.Nicknamed Bomber Harris, the hawk was captured in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, in April, and falconer Wayne Housden has been training him.The bird of prey was blamed for attacks on about 50 people including one incident where a man was taken to hospital.Mr Housden said the story had reached "a happy ending".
After working with birds for about 30 years, he said his first priority was to stabilise his new feathered friend."He has calmed right down," said Mr Housden, who said he had spent about £1,000 building him an aviary.The falconer said he would take Bomber Harris to the Flamstead Scarecrow Festival in August and aimed to let him loose in the autumn.The hawk's "unusual" behaviour was likely hormonal or territorial and he was "not nasty at all", Wayne said.
"I am keeping him full-time... that wasn't the plan and that isn't why I tried to catch him," he explained.Mr Housden said Bomber Harris - a non-native South American species - was likely a captive-bred bird that had lost its falconer. He said the dried-out leather tags on its feet suggested it had been loose for more than a year.He had not been contacted by anyone claiming to be its owner, Mr Housden said."If I was to let someone else have him, I would have wanted to stay in contact with him," he added."He's been failed once and he is not going to be failed again and the only way that I can make sure of that is by me keeping him myself."
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