Falcons Emerging as Popular Bird-Control Option

At the 2023 Oregon Blueberry Field Day, Kort Clayton of Integrated Avian Solutions, provided a falconry flight demonstration and walked field day participants through what they can expect if bringing a falconer onto a farm.

In what was largely a question-and-answer session with a demonstration that highlighted the speed and maneuverability of the fastest animals on earth, Clayton noted that in most cases a falconer will bring a team of five or six birds out to a farm, and the team will spend up to two months on the farm.

Kort Clayton of Integrated Avian Solutions with the falcon Copper at the Oregon Blueberry Field Day provides a falconry flight demonstration.

“It is typically a full-time, everyday program,” Clayton said. “But we’ve also had good results with a less-than-full-time program. A part-time program can work because birds are aware there is a predator there, but they will at times sneak in on the off day.”

Clayton added that many producers employ cannons, bird squawkers or other devices on off days when using a part-time program.

The cost to bring out a team is typically between $600 and $800 a day, he said, and a typical team can cover roughly 700 acres.

Falconry has become a popular option for blueberry farmers battling bird damage in recent years, Clayton said, largely because conventional controls, such as propane cannons and bird squawkers simply haven’t provided the level of control that growers desire.

Falcons are natural predators, and for the purpose of bird control they are bred in captivity. “We buy them, train them and put them to work,” Clayton said.

Copper, the bird Clayton used for his demonstration at the field day, July 26 at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora, had a transmitter attached to his back, which provided real-time flight data, so a falconer can see which areas of a field have been covered.

One question from field day participants was whether native raptors like kestrels and red-tailed hawks were effective at bird control. Clayton noted that native raptors generally target rodents and so aren’t particularly effective at bird control. “They don’t target birds very often,” Clayton said.

Clayton added that even falcons can have off days. “At the end of the day, they all do the job quite well, but because they aren’t machines, some do better than others on certain days,” he said. “That’s why we bring out a team of falcons.”

Clayton noted that the smaller falcons, such as peregrines, generally are the best for bird control in small fruit crops. The birds can fly at speeds of up to 240 mph, making them the fastest animals on earth.