The "Wise Flying Cannon"

“…Necessity is the mother of invention.”

                                                                      -Richard Franck

Each fall, hundreds of thousands of raptors make their annual migration south, many following the eastern shoreline. And each year, during this migration, a handful of falconers rise before the sun, drive to “their spot,” set up various nets and traps and try to lure a merlin from the sky.

Unfortunately, at the same time the migration of the “snowbird” also begins. Snowbirds are also attracted to the eastern coastline; they flock to the Florida shores by the thousands. To accommodate these migrants, snowbird habitat is being constructed at an alarming rate. Each year, a few weeks before the migration, we scout old trapping spots only to find a new home or condo standing where a dho-gazza once stood.

Spence Wise lives in Merritt Island, Florida, only a few miles from the beach. But he drives forty miles south to trap merlins. Not because there is anything special about this particular acre of land, but because it’s the closest suitable spot to his house. I’ve driven south from Daytona Beach, down highway A1A, past more condos and homes than I can count, for over three hours and found only a handful of suitable places to trap. So what happens when there is a home sitting on every inch of the Florida coast?

Spence believes you get a boat and trap just off shore.

In late September 2002 I was tapping merlins on the east coast of Florida. Meanwhile, fifty miles up the beach, Spence and a few other falconers were also trapping. He called me around 10:00am to say they had just trapped a female merlin and I could have her if I wanted to drive up. I packed my trapping gear in the truck and headed north to pick up my new bird. As I approached Spence’s trapping site I saw a “Little Bear” delta kite flying high in the air. A few of the guys were kite training their peregrines, but I thought this was a terrible place to do it! 

I walked up the path and sure enough they had a kite attached to the front of the blind. I saw my bird, neatly socked and hooded. I didn’t see any nets, so naturally I asked how they caught her. They explained that my new bird (Lilly) was the first falcon ever snared by a “kite trap.” She was caught by a primitive version, nothing more than a sparrow wearing a noose harness suspended fifty feet in the air. The noosed sparrow was attached to the kite string, and as a merlin approached it was pulled up into the sky to meet the falcon. Every merlin in the area was drawn to the fluttering sparrow, but few were snared. Nonetheless, it was a simple, brilliant leap in raptor trapping.

Although the harnessed sparrow only caught two merlins, it did prove that a wild merlin would come to a sparrow suspended from a kite. Spence just needed a better way to actually catch it. The following summer, with the help of his apprentice Shane Brandes, Spence conceived and built the coolest trapping gadget I have ever seen: A miniature cannon net, designed to suspend from a kite and fire a net downward in the blink of an eye.

 The “Wise Cannon Net”

If you’re like me, a “gadgeteer,” you’re going to love this trap. I don’t know exactly how this thing was conceived, but I can say it’s the type of gadget guys dream up in the wee-hours of the morning after a few dozen beers. Fortunately for all of us, they remembered the beery conversation and built it.

 The trap uses a shotgun primer to project a net downward to catch a raptor. The device is attached to a kite line approximately one thousand feet below the kite.  Hanging from the cannon, thirty inches below, is a sparrow in a harness. When a raptor grabs the sparrow and applies the selected amount of pressure the trigger releases, firing the shotgun primer and projecting the net towards the bird. The whole thing weighs less than one hundred grams and fits in the palm of your hand. It’s fairly complex so I won’t even attempt to give step-by-step instructions on how to build one, but the trap is made up of three basic components: (1) the trigger, (2) the exhaust chamber and the net.

The trigger (1) sits at the top and is connected to the kite string. It has a setscrew (b) that adjusts the amount of pressure it takes to release the firing pin (a). Once the proper amount of downward pressure is applied the spring loaded firing pin releases. The pin contacts the shotgun primer (c) expelling the gases down four exhaust tubes.

The exhaust tubes are welded into the main exhaust chamber pointing down at 35-degree angles. Each has a rubber o-ring on the tip that a plastic cap (d) fits snuggly onto.

The net is a two foot square piece of two inch gill netting. A string is tied to each corner and then to a plastic cap (d) that fits onto the exhaust tube. The net is gently stuffed into a small plastic canister (e), the size of a film canister, which sits in the center of the four exhaust tubes and each cap is placed onto its appropriate tube.

The sparrow is suspended from a string thirty inches below the trap. The string tethering the sparrow runs through the net canister and attaches to the main body of the cannon net. When the net is packed into the canister this string runs through the center of the net. So when the net fires it travels down this line. 

When the shotgun primer fires, the exhaust gases shoot the four plastic caps off, pulling the net out of the canister. When the net hits the sparrow and merlin it stops and the plastic caps act as boleros twisting around each other entangling the birds. When you lower your bird to the ground, you do not untangle it from this net – you merely cut the net off the bird.

Does it work?

Necessity has spawned a trap with enormous potential. Although it only trapped one merlin during the 2003 migration I see many more in it’s future. Its lack of success was mostly because we spent much of the year working out technical issues, rebuilding and missing good trapping days. But the only bird that bound to the sparrow was captured.

On September 28^th, 2003 we had two dho-gazza sets stationed fifty yards apart and the cannon net was flying fifty feet overhead. I was manning my dho-gazza and the cannon net was directly over me.

I saw a merlin flying south and began to lure it into my nets. I soon realized the merlin had her sights set on the sparrow, now fluttering, high above my head. Anticipating this event, I had my camera around my neck, ready to fire.

I pulled the camera to my eye, held down the shutter and watched through my 300mm lens. The merlin came straight to the sparrow, grabbed it and POW; like the crack of a .22 rifle, the cannon fired and the merlin was netted. It all happened in a split second. Stumbling over the uneven ground and one another we raced to lower the merlin into my hands.

I don’t know if this trap is a replacement for all existing trapping methods, but with further use I think it will prove very effective. We encourage falconers around the country to experiment with other kite trapping devices. We have tried several configurations: suspended noose traps, harnessed birds, and have drawn up others: small suspended Dho-gazzas and other strange contraptions. But I’m sure someone will come up with another great idea. For now this trap reigns as the all time “coolest” trapping gadget known to man.

The Wise Cannon Net was not built with commercial purposes in mind; however, Spence has agreed to have more traps built if there is sufficient interest. Further information on acquiring a trap, as well as updated photos and trapping stories can be found at www.merlinfalconry.com.  

Cannon Net Instructions HERE
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