Ohio School of Falconry
“And just as it seemed impossible for her to fall any faster, she’d change her shape again. Shrugging one shoulder sharply forward to slice through the molecules of resistant air, she dropped away from the astonished cameraman, cutting the sky in two at a velocity of over 200 miles an hour.”
– Excerpt from Helen Macdonald’s book Falcon.
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to see a peregrine hunt, you’ll be excited to hear of The Ohio School of Falconry’s participation in The Ohio Scottish Games. We spoke with Joe Dorrian, founder of the school, and discussed their mission and what we might expect to see at the Games.
iIrish: How did you become interested in the sport of falconry?
I was a student at St. Timothy’s, here in Columbus, in Mr. Mooney’s fifth-grade class. He gave us a book to read called My Side of the Mountain. It’s about a little boy who leaves home to live in the forest in a hollowed-out tree. He captures and trains a peregrine falcon to hunt rabbits. I was hooked!
For the next couple of years, I had it in my head that I would capture a falcon, and he could live in the garage in the place I had reserved for the pony that never came. But by high school, girls, sports, and other things took over.
Fast forward thirty years, I received a gift card and thought about what interested me. I bought a book on falconry just before going on vacation with my wife and family to Florida. I didn’t leave the hotel room—I read the book over and over and reignited my passion. There’s a saying in falconry: One bird, one wife; two birds, no wife; three birds, no life. I now have over twenty birds as part of the school, and my wife is a saint! Some of the birds live in the house with us during the colder months. My kids have learned to work with them and handle them as they grew up.
iIrish: How did the school come about?
My day job has been in adult education, leadership development, team development, and executive coaching. I was looking for a way to marry my vocation with my avocation and was able to create a position for myself with the State of Ohio as an apprentice director. Most states have someone responsible for bringing new people into falconry. I held that position from 2009 to 2015.
I became frustrated because I was restricted in what I could do. It’s illegal to handle a bird of prey unless you’re a licensed falconer, raptor rehabilitator, or educator. So, I came up with the idea of a school. There is a type of permit you can get from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that started back in the ’90s. A couple came from the U.K. and started a school in Vermont called the British School of Falconry. They petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow Master Falconers to have people attend classes and handle birds under supervision. In 2014, I was issued the sixth permit in the U.S., and we were the first to open in about 15 years—not associated with a resort.
Most places charge between $500 and $600 to handle a bird or have it fly to you. They focus on the experience with little emphasis on education. We didn’t want that. With Kate Martin from West Coast Falconry, we developed our mission statement: conservation, preservation, and education about falconry. Education creates revenue, which in turn supports raptor rehabilitators across Ohio. Locally, the Ohio School of Falconry donates food to The Medina Raptor Centre. We’ve also shared our knowledge with other falconry schools across the country, asking only that they support their local raptor rehabilitators like we do.
We opened in 2014, and our first students were a married couple who taught at St. Charles High School in Columbus. Now, eleven years later, thousands have come through our doors.
iIrish: Where are you located?
We teach at three locations: twice a month in Medina at Isaac Walton, for the Cincinnati/Dayton area at Camp Kern YMCA, and our home base is in Columbus at Camp Mary Orton. We offer a variety of programs, starting with our introduction to falconry—Falconry 101—and continuing with Walk with Hawks, Falconry 201. We also have an Owl Encounter and other programs.
We strive to get people up close with birds of prey and help them understand the sport’s history, which dates back at least 6,000 years. There’s a tapestry in Japan, dated 6,000 years old, depicting a falconer hunting with a goshawk. We also know that Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan spread falconry westward. When they marched, they took hundreds of falconers with them to catch food for the troops, introducing the sport to the Middle East and Europe.
Falconry declined in Europe for a time but resurged after the Crusades. Some believe the Romans brought the sport to Britain and Ireland. Falconry is sometimes called the “oldest sport,” but its origins are as a subsistence sport, a means of putting food on the table. Within the last ten years, falconry has been recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Sport.
iIrish: What can we expect to see at The Ohio Scottish Games on June 21 and 22?
Expect plenty of bad dad jokes to start! We’ll have between five and seven different types of raptors, representing Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. Owls, hawks, buzzards, and maybe even an eagle will be there. We talk about the sport’s history as we walk around with these birds so you can see them up close.
We’ll also do flights. We always try to involve the audience as part of the program, having a couple of people hold a raptor and have it fly to their glove. The shows run about an hour, and we’ll also have birds staked out for closer viewing and questions. Plus, we’ll have some cool merchandise. Hope to see everyone there!
Bob Carney is a student of Irish language and history and teaches the Speak Irish Cleveland class every Tuesday at PJ McIntyre’s. He’s active in Irish Wolfhound and Irish dog organizations in Cleveland. He can be reached at [email protected].
