Sunday, February 09, 2014

The Falcon and the Falconer-Who is more eye-catching?





A real problem here is there are a lot of outdoor restaurants and the birds, sometimes quite large ones, come and sit on your table and partake. The Hotel del Coronado in Coronado has a breath-taking way of taking care of this. Both the falconer and the falcon get attention. Usually the birds just have to spot this falcon to take off. Or maybe it's her red hair.

Is this a common way of dealing with thieving birds?

4 comments:

Cap'n Bob said...

I'll take the falconer, thanks. I've never heard of birds of prey being used to keep other avians away from one's dinner, but when I worked for the USAF we had a falconer's hawks keep geese and other potential threats away from the flightline.

Unknown said...

Yikes! I can imagine a falcon swooping in on a sooty tern at my table. There goes my appetite, thank you. Perhaps owl decoys would work just as well. They work at marinas. Why not at the Hotel Del?

Anonymous said...

Patti - I don't think it's that common. It's certainly interesting though and as you say, eye-catching.

J F Norris said...

That's utterly bizarre! I've never heard of it.

Owl decoys NEVER work where I live. People put them on their rooves here in Chicago and pigeons --as stupid as they are -- figure out an owl that never moves is either dead or not an owl. Soon enough they fly down and peck at the damn plastic bird and make the roof a frequent stopping place.