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To send a group email to all THA Officers, use:
officers "at" texashawking.org
(please use the @ sign where you see "at")
,

Chuck Redding, Board Southern Director (Con't)
southdir "at" texashawking.org

Flash forward to around 2002. Mark Reindel called me one day, saying, “There's a guy named Jim. He lives somewhere in Texas. Bellaire? Know where that is? Here's his phone number, maybe he'll let you go out in the field with him. Oh yeah, he flies a tiercel peregrine.” The guy was Jim Ince, and Bellaire was about a ten-minute drive from my house in Oak Forest in Houston. Mark had been calling him about Jim's Hawk Chalk article related to Jim's jumpy cassini peregrine. Because of the number of raptors in the area where Jim flew his bird, Gaucho was a bit edgy about being approached on a kill. In the preceding five or six years, the peregrine had been stalked by redtails, red-shouldereds, and white-tailed hawks, caracaras, harriers, and once was almost flown down and eaten by a bald eagle. So Jim would garnish an extension pole with a pigeon breast tied to the end of the pole and transfer Gaucho from the captured game bird to the pigeon before making in. Why Mark was interested in that particular topic, I'm not sure, since he hunted black ducks, which are huge, in the salt marshes up on Nantucket Island. His Peregrine/prairie falcon couldn't even consider flying off with one, and I don't recall her ever showing any carrying tendencies anyway.

So that's how I got into falconry. Jim became a friend and sponsor. I struggled with two Kestrels the first season, losing both just as they began chasing birds seriously. The first was chased off by a female sharp-shin; the second I lost after he carried his first field kill. Then in the fall, I lost a passage redtail who disappeared after a bizarre encounter with the local resident haggard. I considered giving up, having lost three birds in less than a year, but my current passage male redtail, Cisco, was caught on Roger Crandall's BC up in Fort Worth in December of 2005, and I have been flying him ever since. Cisco is the perfect bird for the heavy cover hiding the swamp rabbits here in Houston. A serious brush crasher also adept at flying rabbits down in the open. In addition, he is a fine squirrel hawk. I plan to fly him until one of us is growing lilies. Also I have had the pleasure of flying a Coulson tiercel Harris' hawk, Dart, for about eight months total. That bird was given to me by Chris Comeaux, shortly after Hurricane Ike demolished Chris' house. By the time you read this, Dart should be living in Lynne Holder's mew.

Professionally, I am a mechanical engineer by training, working in the oilfield service industry. The THA is a fine organization, and has greatly benefited me and the Texas falconry community. I am honored to serve in the capacity of Southern Director and would like to hear from my constituents about any falconry-related issue. If I can be of assistance to you, please feel free to get in touch with me.

The day after John Graham made the announcement, a fellow emailed me, among other things, asking, “Why can't we have more events down south?” That’s a good question. Manuel Gonzales has generously hosted trapping mini-meets down near Laredo, but in general, this man's point is correct. Most THA events happen in north Texas. Let's see what we can do about it.