On a wing and a prayer
Written by Tricia Pursell
To the untrained eye, it just looked like a bunch of crows flying around a remote Snyder County field.To Mike Dupuy, it was a sign."Crows are boisterous, so you have to learn their language," he said. If they are cawing a lot, and loudly, it usually means something is wrong. "They are really good monitors of predators like hawks, owls, snakes, foxes and even humans."
In this case, he was hoping the crows' activity might lead him to his missing goshawk, Hanna, who had escaped from her house days earlier. Dupuy, of rural Middleburg, is a master falconer, and has found himself in this position more than once. His beloved hawks and -falcons are his hunting weapons. "It's like using your shotgun, or rifle, but with this art, you are dealing with a creature that can fly."
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