2001 Newsletter - The Peregrine Fund

12
Kite Capture (continued from page 11)
“placed in the end of a cleft stick and
given to a runner who proceeded on
foot to Simon’s house in the traditional
manner of local mail delivery.”
Simon then put the floppy in his
portable computer to read the message.
He said this whole procedure
“took a bit of the convenience out of
e-mail communication” for him!
Drawing on Simon’s experience of
capturing Black Kites in Africa, we
decided to make a blind so we could
be closer to the birds when we caught
them and to aid our observations. At
mid-day when the birds went off to
soar they were often gone for hours.
One day, when I thought the kites
were out for the afternoon, I took a
small shovel and started to make a
place where we could hide. I scraped a
shallow depression in the ground and
started to pile some large rocks around
the perimeter. I noticed the shadow of
a bird move by me. Looking up, I saw
two of the kites only about 40 yards
above. They were watching with great
interest. I walked away feeling foolish.
That evening all four of the kites came
and perched near the aborted hiding
place. The ravens came, and upon
seeing the depression and out of place
rocks, they jumped up and down and
cursed the place so loudly that the
kites flew away without even inspecting
the nearby food we had left for
them.
We discussed what we had learned
so far and between us tried to come up
with a solution for catching these
birds. If we could get them all at once
to feed within a few feet of each other,
we would have a chance of capturing
them all with a bow net. A bow net is
a circular net with a ridged frame that
can be placed flat on the ground and
pulled over whatever is within its
perimeter. We soon found we could get
the kites to feed together, but only
once every four or five days.
We set up the bow net and tested it
several times in a place hidden from
the kites’ usual haunts. Each time it
took almost four hours to set up so
that is was hidden from the critical
eyes of the ravens by carefully sprinkling
it with a fine layer of sand. Once
satisfied that the trap worked perfectly,
we set it up one final time, and even
brushed our tracks from the sand as
we retreated 300 yards to our observation
spot. It was days later before the
Cape Verde Kite habitat
on Boavista Island.
ravens, and then the kites, found the
bait. The ravens came in first. They
walked around and around the carcass,
calling softly to each other. After about
10 minutes they moved in very close
and began tentatively pecking at it.
Finally, they started to eat. Our careful
preparations had succeeded in deceiving
even the smart ravens!
Then the kites arrived, all at once.
They sat about 50 yards away and
watched suspiciously. Then they began
to walk in, slowly at first, stopping and
going, waiting for the ones behind to
catch up. As they got closer, they
seemed more excited; their pace quickened
until they began to run, stopping
only for a second or two in their rush.
Finally, one ran straight in with wings
slightly spread in a threatening posture.
Reluctantly, the ravens flew off a
short distance. Now, suddenly, all the
kites were on the carcass. They looked
around and began to feed.
After weeks of patient learning
through observation and trial and
error, we had all four kites together
and within the perimeter of our trap.
Success seemed to be at hand! We
looked at each other with wide eyes.
Anticipating the sprint to the net to
retrieve the captured kites, we grabbed
the transmitter that triggers the trap
and pushed the release lever.
Nothing happened. We passed the
transmitter from hand to hand, pushing
more and more vigorously on the
lever. A good number of technical
expressions were uttered in several different
languages. But it did not help.
Simon even crept in closer to the trap
to see if perhaps reducing the distance
to the receiver on the trap would help.
But to no avail.
Later, as we inspected the failed
trap, we realized that over the days of
patient waiting, sand had gradually
trickled into the trap’s mechanism and
packed tightly around the bow so that
it was effectively jammed tight in the
ground. We tried a variety of solutions,
but with very limited materials available
to work with, none were reliable
Photo by Jim Willmarth