Come fall in wine nation, summer season swarms of thirsty human beings give way to hungry flocks of birds. Drawn to the near-ripe fruit of the season’s harvest, these vineyard insects come down on rows of Syrah, Pinot Gris, and Gamay Noir for a banquet. As you might think of, this drives winemakers bonkers. Red wine grapes are pricey, tough to grow, and, well, the main active ingredient in white wine. A group of starlings can eat countless dollars worth of the crop in mere minutes.
Enter any variety of bird-away procedures, from gas cannons and taped hawk shrieks dipped into complete volume to netting, reflective ribbon, and even kites. Maybe the best approach, though, is falconry, an olden practice that includes releasing an experienced bird of victim on the estate to horrify the winged problems.
Alina Blankenship started Sky Guardian Falconry, a company that targets nuisance birds, in 2021. In addition to contracting with vineyards, the company works with other agricultural sectors, organizations, marinas, sports stadiums, and airports to drive out undesirable wildlife. She confesses that she got into the video game late, not meddling falconry until she was nearly 40. “A buddy of mine contacted me about a bird banging itself against a window in her garage,” she states. “I didn’t have any unique abilities; I simply had more nerve than she. I trapped the bird in a coat and took it into a restroom to see if it seemed okay.”
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Credit: Chris Fox
That was the beginning. Soon, Blankenship discovered herself looking into Cooper’s Hawks, and she grew interested. She’s been a falconer now for 13 years.
Blakenship describes her birds as “winged Dobermans.” Like the fearsome dog, they work watchdogs; protectors of the vineyard. There are other options for keeping aerial bugs at bay, some much better than others, however as Blankenship states, they’re all basically kinds of mimicry. It frequently takes a real bird to keep the others away. And it assists to believe like one, too.
“Birds see in the UV spectrum,” she says. “Where we see a starling as a black bird with rainbowlike highlights, they see an iridescent bird with some black, so a plastic owl is like asking you to think a poodle is real if it’s pink.” To put it simply, good luck steering the swarms away with that hawk-shaped kite.
What of the cannon fire some vineyard teams employ? They may also be supper bells, she says. “When a cannon is released, it is for a short while frightening and annoying; nevertheless, not just does nothing bad occur, something good takes place– it’s a sign that the fruit is ripe as that’s when they are called into service” states Blankenship.
A genuine bird of prey is a pretty reliable type of intimidation. Anybody who’s seen a swarm of smaller sized birds leave the scene when a red-tailed hawk appears called much. Falconers send their qualified birds out on missions, actively chasing smaller sized birds out of the vineyard as if on the hunt. In reality, sometimes they’ll even catch their prey.
Credit: Chris Fox
Kort Clayton entered into falconry 3 decades ago while he was in college. He’s considering that formed it into a full-on career as the principal of Integrated Aviation Solutions, a bird management attire based in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. He says the 2022 growing season was an involved one for his trade.
“For us, busy methods ‘birdy,'” he says. “It’s years like this where the harvest runs deep into October; the grapes are susceptible to hungry moving flocks of cedar waxwings, starlings, and robins.”
In Oregon, harvest was delayed this season due to a specifically cool and damp spring that extended into blossom. Poor weather condition in May was cause for alarm, and some in the know suggested that crop loads might be cut in half. Luckily, a wonderful October in regards to weather conserved the vintage, although it did bring some included bird pressure.
“Falcons and falconers searching every wine from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week,” he says of the harvest. “It’s extreme, however we enjoy every minute of it.”
The gig belongs outside the vineyard, too. Blankenship states she dealt with the Army Corps of Engineers on The Dalles Dam Job, in which she had her birds scare the lots of resident gulls and cormorants away. These pesky birds feed upon young salmon attempting to make it to the ocean. She and Clayton are often hired to take on birds like crows, pigeons, and geese in venues like stadiums and recycling centers. But it’s the vineyard that feels the most romantic– a natural setting that makes many falcons and falconers feel most at home.
An estimated 4,000 falconers call the U.S. home. It’s a tiny group, rich with characters. And, like becoming a vintner or Master of Red wine, making the title does not just occur over night. As Clayton says, it’s a real process. “Falconry is managed at the state and federal levels,” he states. “Price of admission is months of independent study, passing a state-administered test, and a two-year apprenticeship.”
Credit: Chris Fox
He states there’s also a special-purpose authorization needed from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to offer pro-bird abatement services. Experiencing all that training put to work in the vineyard is quite the spectacle. Falconers and their birds have intimate relationships, and seeing the raptors come and go– from onslaught (the name of a falconer’s protective glove) to darting run in the sky and back to onslaught– is a thing of beauty. It likewise use something primal, not unlike red wine itself. Both viticulture and falconry have actually been around for thousands of years, and it seems like the relationship between the 2 is healthy enough to last a couple of thousand more.
“Let’s face it, falconers are artists,” Clayton states. “So it naturally follows that our neighborhood is rich with enthusiasm, personality, feeling, and quirks.”