The People

Name: Scott Mason

Background: Scott is the pioneer of Parahawking and has dedicated the last 10 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 10 years of age. An award winning bird trainer, Scott 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 and his Partner Anita (below) run Maya Devi Village, a guest house based at the Parahawking center in Pokhara an the Himalayan Raptor Rescue project where they care for sick, injured and orphaned birds.

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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: Tracy Jacobs

Background: Tracy is originally from South Africa but has spent the last several years in the UK working with various birds and mammals. Tracy has taken on a managerial role within the Parahawking team this year, doing everything from managing the mews to organising the pilots and the parahawking flights as well as doing the vulture conservation presentations that form a large part of the Parahawking commitment to raising awareness for vulture conservation projects. Our birds have never been in better hands.

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Name: Jessica Love

Background: Jess is a seasoned visitor to Nepal and has paraglided in many places all over the world. Jess is very energetic and has an insatiable appetite for sport and adventure, she's not happy if she's not moving! Jess joined the Parahawking team initially as a stand in but is now a full time member of the team.

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Name: Damodar Parajuli

Background: Damu as he's known to his friends is our first Nepali Parahawking pilot and i'm sure he won't be the last. Damu's interest in birds goes back to when he was a lad. He has already owned an Eagle that he rescued and without any knowledge of falconry or bird training, trained the bird to fly and return to him. A few year on Damu is now a 1st class paragliding pilot with a rejuvinated passion for Bird of prey.

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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 at Maya Devi as rescue birds, and were for various reasons unable to return to the wild.

 
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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Name: Sapana

Species: Black Kite (Milvus migrans)

Hatched: 2001

Gender: Female

Weight: 920g

Background: Sapana was less than a week old when her nest site was cut down. After being rescued she was unavoidably hand-reared by humans and, as a result, is unable to fend for herself in the wild. Sapana was the first bird brought in as part of the Himalayan Raptor Rescue and the world’s first bird to be successfully taught to fly with paragliders.

Flight Log: Black Kites are extremely intelligent, and Sapana is evidence of this. In her first three years of flying, Sapana proved to be an exceptional parahawking bird. She has since learned that there are easier ways to acquire food and therefore no longer flies with the paragliders. She is however exercised daily. If you would like to watch Sapana soar with her wild cousins and have her return to your fist for a reward, or learn to fly a hawk by the banks of the lake, please ask us.

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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.