Red tailed hawk encounter

[ChickensAreSweet]

Wow that was amazing! I will have to google "jesses" to see what that is. Beautiful bird.

 

[sourland]

Jesses are the leather straps attached to a hawks legs which allow the handler to control the bird.

 

[Honey B]

Several years ago a redtail with jesses appeared in a tree in my back yard.  It eventually flew away.  I worried that it's jesses probably became tangled in something causing the bird to die.

Most falconers use anklets with jesses. The jesse is threaded through a grommet at the back of the anklet. If a bird escapes it will eventually pick/pluck the jesse out. Falconers also have two types of jesses. One with a slit in the bottom of the leather for keeping the bird in the mew and another with a small hole in the bottom for free flight and hunting. Falconers make the hole in the hunting jesses as small as possible to avoid entanglement.