Flying a hawk

For the rest of our time at the Falconry School, we got to take one of the birds out and fly her. Inca is a Peruvian Harris hawk. Gary (that's him behind Inca) got the honor of walking Inca out to the open space, and flying her first. Isn't she magnificent?

7.10.2015 note: I've added a few more photographs of people in our group. 

Then we each got a turn, if we wanted. Wearing the glove and having Inca fly to me was a thrill I'll never forget. She got a little sidetracked in the bushes before she came to me, so the handler tucked a piece of chicken into the glove, and had me keep my fingers closed around the food to make Inca work for her food. So I got to hold her for a bit while she tugged at the glove to get at the food (Dave took these photos with my camera).

When it wasn't my turn, I took as many photographs as I could, to share with the others in our group. I just cranked up the shutter speed on my Nikon, crossed my fingers, and tried not to overthink it.