In 1984, I was hoping to obtain a passage Cooper’s hawk for the coming season. Since my father lives in a much better place to trap Cooper’s, I talked him into setting up a blind with a bownet. A few days in the blind brought in some small accipiters, but none large or hungry enough to take the lure pigeon. On September 23^rd he staked out a sparrow in the middle of the bownet. It wasn’t long before the pigeon went nuts and an accipiter buzzed the pigeon, did a quick wingover, and had the sparrow. Seconds later the hawk was under the net.

My dad didn’t realize just how small the hawk was until he ran out and it was about to escape through the net. I received a call from my mother saying my dad was holding a small accipiter, but it wasn’t a Cooper’s. I was excited about trying a sharpie. Then she said, "It’s a male." After a few minutes of deliberating, I decided to try the bird, but requested they not disassemble the blind.

Since it was Sunday morning and I had to work the next day, they agreed to meet me halfway of the four-hour drive. The bird wasn’t doing well in the sock, so my dad just held the bird on his fist as they sped down I-80. The hawk rode incredibly well, even when semis would pass; I think he was sitting still hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.

After getting him home and out of the giant hood I’d made that morning (actually, it was more of a medium hood) I had to settle my wife and kids down as they were laughing at my new "hawk". It’s not hard to convince people that falconry is for sport, not for putting meat on the table, when you’re flying a musket sharpie. After messing with his weight for a few days, I concluded that his top weight was 80 grams and his flying weight would be about 72 grams.

After working mostly with redtails, I discovered that the training of this small accipiter was accelerated due to his rapid metabolism; we were able to do two or three training sessions per day. (He was kept outside and gorged every morning; his weight was adjusted at the morning feeding. Later, as the weather got colder, two gorges a day were not enough.) On the eighth day I flew him about fifty feet on a creance. I walked back to the post, set him down, and walked away again for a longer flight, but I only got about twenty feet away before the little hawk landed on my head.

On the fourteenth day after trapping, Sweet Pea made his first kill, an English sparrow. He flew with it to the nearest bush, where I made in to him with no problem. (That would continue, but I had the impression that he never carried from me, only to the nearest bush to protect his kill from other predators.) Over the next few weeks he caught 7 sparrows, with a couple more brought to bag that I picked up—one actually ran under my foot.

He was always flown from the fist, except for occasional re-flushes. He was very quick off the fist, and I had to watch him carefully, because he was so light I couldn’t feel him leave.

One memorable fist flight was made as we approached a tall deciduous tree with just a few fall leaves remaining. We were some forty yards from the tree when he took off, hugging the ground in typical accipiter fashion, toward the base of the tree. Then he corkscrewed up through the branches and caught a sparrow just as it took flight.

Sweet Pea could be flown up to 76 grams if he was flown late in the day. Raptors’ tendency to become desperate for a kill in late afternoon seems to be exaggerated in this small hawk. I didn’t bell him for obvious reasons, but left him out overnight only once, when he made a kill towards dusk and flew to some thick cover along a creek. I recovered him at daybreak the next morning, not twenty feet from where I last saw him.

The last time I flew him was about the first of December. I walked out to the fields behind my house, and noticed he was lying down on my fist. I offered him a sparrow, but he wouldn’t even look at it—he had gone into a low-sugar fit. I stuck him under my coat and ran for home.

Knowing how easily this could happen with an accipiter (I had lost a goshawk to a low-sugar fit), I had obtained a syringe and a small rubber tube. As soon as I could, I got 2 cc’s of Pepsi into Sweet Pea’s stomach, then laid him down in a cardboard box. Next I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of Gatorade. I expected to find him dead when I got back, but he was still alive, lying down in the box. I gave him 2 cc’s of Gatorade and left him alone for ten minutes; when I returned he was standing up.

Gorging a bird that is this low in condition can be fatal, so I chopped up a sparrow breast along with the heart and liver and offered it to him. He still looked a bit shaky, but he hopped to the fist and devoured the tidbits. Half an hour later I fed him a whole sparrow; he was okay.

During a warm spell two weeks later, I released him in a Christmas-tree farm where many small dickey birds winter and sharpies are occasionally seen.

I don’t think I’ll ever keep another male sharpie because of the weight control problem, unless my home environment (my wife) allowed keeping an accipiter in the house. Getting up at 4:30 every morning to weigh the hawk, and then feed it accordingly to keep it at flying weight, was a real effort— and in the end, the bird’s small size made weight control too delicate. I do hope to fly an imprint female sharpie someday—hopefully when the local quail population is at its peak.