The People

Name: Scott Mason

Background: Scott is the pioneer of Parahawking and has dedicated the last 8 years to promoting this new sport and perfecting the techniques. Scott grew up in East London and has been training birds of prey since he was 12 years of age. He made the transition from traditional falconry to parahawking in 2001 after he fell in love with Nepal and paragliding whilst on his travels. As well as parahawking, Scott runs the Himalayan Raptor Rescue project at his home in Nepal where he cares for sick, injured and orphaned birds. He is able to use Parahawking and the publicity it receives to provide support for Vulture conservation in Nepal.

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Name: Anita Hjertas

Background: Anita joined the team at the beginning of the 2008 season with a limited amount of experience of training birds of prey. However, she quickly embraced the project and Nepal's lifestyle and has made herself indispensable. Having grown up on a farm in Norway and spent much of her life in Tanzania and South Africa, Anita is a true natural with all animals, showing the level of compassion needed when dealing with sick or injured birds. As well as being a fantastic cook, she has brought Maya Devi to life with her happy go lucky nature.

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Name: Claudio Mota

Background: I am delighted to confirm that Claudio Mota is joining the team this year. You may know Claudio from the amazing Paragliding film by Sean White "Never Ending Thermal" especially the closing scenes from the breathtaking flight he did from Angle Falls in his home country of Venezuela. Claudio's flying career began way back in 1991. Since then he has won several major competitions and held a number of records, and is still winning races even as we speak. Claudio first came to Nepal in 2003 during the filming of Never Ending Thermal and has been a regular and one of Pokhara's characters ever since. His first Parahawking flight was two years ago, and quite frankly, he looked like he'd been doing it for years, he loves nature and the birds and the birds love him.

When he's not flying in Nepal or winning comps, Claudio runs the Fly Victoria Paragliding School in Vancouver, Canada, his adopted homeland, where he lives with his Finnish wife Eli and their baby son Noa. To find out lots more about Claudio go to his website - www.flyvictoria.com

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Name: Elli Mota

Background:

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Name: Emily Hammell

Background: Emily is the newest member of out team, in fact she will be joining us at the beginning of the forthcoming season.

Her picture and more details about Emily will be available shortly.

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Name: Brad Sander

Background: Brad's love and skills of flying were born and have developed in the Himalayas, and so has his interest and enthusiasm for Parahawking. Brad spends his winters here in Pokhara flying with our birds, taking tandems and pushing the boundaries of Parahawking to new limits. When he's not in Nepal, you'll find him in Pakistan where he runs specially guided Paragliding tours deep into the high mountains. So high in fact that Brad completed the first ever circumnavigation of Tirich Mir, which is the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush range where he reached an altitude of 7300 m, just 300 m off the world record. Click here to download the flight log - http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=14863&highlight=paraglide+pakistan -

To find out more about Brads tours to Pakistan, go to - http://bradsander.blogspot.com

Fact: Brad the Bird is actually named after Brad Sander

The birds

Here you get a chance to meet the birds that make up the Parahawking Team. All the birds used for parahawking came to Himalayan Raptor Rescue Centre at Maya Devi as rescue birds, and were for various reasons unable to return to the wild. For more information on Himalayan Raptor Rescue and all the birds at the Centre please click here .

 
Name: Brad

Species: Black Kite (milvus migrans)

Hatched: 2003

Gender: Male

Weight: 660g

Background: Brad was still a juvenile bird when he was discovered living as a “pet” in a small wire cage. Emaciated and suffering from extensive feather damage, it took twelve months for him to regain enough strength to begin his training.

Flight Log: Small in proportions but a champion at heart, Brad has logged over one hundred hours with the gliders. He has tackled challenging cross-country routes and has recently developed a true talent for aerobatics. Black Kites are particularly agile in flight, out-manoeuvring the most skilled paragliders. Our Kites are able to spiral, stoop and perform the most incredible aerobatics whilst chasing the glider to get their reward.

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Name: Kevin

Species: Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus)

Hatched: 2006

Gender: Male

Weight: 1650g

Background: Kevin was found during the 2006 monsoon after falling from his nest. Hand-reared and unable to return to the wild he has quickly become one of Maya Devi’s favourite personalities.

Flight Log: Kevin is the world’s first Parahawking Vulture. Being the first Vulture I had trained it was a real learning curve for us both, but he took to Parahawking like a duck to water. In his first year alone, he logged over twenty hours of flight time. With his incredible soaring abilities and sharp mind Kevin has taken parahawking to new heights. Having Kevin around has also helped to bring about awareness of the Vulture Crisis.

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Name: Bob

Species: Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus)

Hatched: 2008

Gender: Male

Weight: 1550g

Background: Bob came to us in the monsoon of 2008. He was found in the same area as Kevin so there is a strong possibility he is Kevin’s younger sibling.

Flight Log: In just 4 short weeks Bob went from taking his first short hops to the glove to flying his first thermal with the Paragliders. Like any youngster, Bob is eager to learn but with a long life ahead of him, we are careful to not let him drift too far as the skies above Sarankot are filled with hungry eagles ready to prey on vulnerable young birds. He will fly close to the glider, land on the passengers glove when called for his reward, sit comfortably for a minute or two then take off when he feels like it. As he gets older, he'll be allowed to venture further from the glider and use his own natural ability to find and guide me to thermals, but for now I'll keep a fairly close reign on him, just like his natural parents would do. However, in time, we are confident that Bob will be partnering Kevin on longer cross country flights.

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Name: Goggles

Species: Black Kite (Milvus migrans)

Hatched: 2004

Gender: Female

Weight: 800g

Background: Goggles arrived at Maya Devi after his nest was destroyed during a pre-monsoon hail storm. He was approximately four weeks old and unable to fend for himself. He was hand reared and cared for until he was old enough to begin his parahawking career.

Flight Log: Goggles is known for his versatile flying style. You can enjoy his incredible soaring flights above our training hill or watch his agility as he is exercised at Maya Devi. You can even take part in one of our falconry lessons where you will get to fly Goggles yourself.

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Vultures in Crisis:

Egyptian Vultures are the smallest of all the Vulture species, weighing in at around 1.5 kg, about 40 cm tall with a wingspan of around 1 metre. They are the true scavengers of the raptor world, being the first and the last birds found on a carcass, picking off every tiny morsels of meat from the left over bones. They will also feed off rubbish sites, rotten vegetables and anything else you might consider to be food. But despite some of their unsavoury eating habits, they are highly intelligent birds with one clever trick up their sleeve, possessing one particular skill that no other raptor has. Egyptian Vultures will pick up rocks and drop them onto Ostrich eggs to get at the food inside. The Pharoe was so impressed with the Egyptian Vulture, he vowed that if anybody was caught harming them, they would be punished, this made the Egyptian Vulture the first ever bird to be protected by law. 


Unfortunately recent studies in India have shown that the Egyptian Vulture numbers have dropped by around 80% in the last 10 years. It is assumed that the cause of this massive decline is the same which has decimated the population of three other Vulture species in Asia - the White Backed, Long billed and Slender billed Vultures - which is the poisoning from the drug Diclofenac, the pain relieving drug which is administered to sick livestock. The Egyptian Vulture has now been placed on the critically endangered list. To find out more about the conservation of Vultures in Asia, click here.