What if I...Put the Glove Back On?

The over-riding incentive to lose 80 pounds is for my health, which of course enables me to live to see my son grow up and have children that my wife and I can enjoy being grandparents of. I can also have a higher quality of life without pain in my legs, a need for a CPAP machine to sleep, a daily dose of Prilosec for heartburn, not to mention the energy to keep up with my energetic son!

But I also want very badly to return to my other passion in life, FALCONRY.

Hunting with a trained hawk is what I was meant to do. I am right with the world when I have a hawk on the fist, tense and ready for a fleeing rabbit. Or high in a tree, laddering higher and closer to a dodgy squirrel intent on surviving this unfortunate run-in with a winged predator intent on filling its crop with warm meat.

Besides complicated and time-consuming, falconry is also a strenuous activity. Walking through knee-high snow for hours on end looking for a rabbit for the hawk to chase is no walk in the park. After only a short time, that 2.5 pound bird on your left fist gets HEAVY!  Fighting the brush tangles in the woods while keeping a squirrel in constant motion—and therefore on the hawk’s radar—is also hard work.


Eighty pounds lighter and in vastly better shape, I have no doubt I will be able to handle the demand on my energy, strength and endurance. Fitting it into my schedule—which is why I sidelined the sport in the first place—is another story. But, I shall burn that bridge when I get to it. First things first: Burn 76 pounds.

A skinnier and younger (and hairier) Scott and my first redtailed hawk, Damian: