Falconry World

Here’s a fine picture of the week taken by Howard Woosey at the falconry fair 2008 with his Nikon camera. More pics and articles added soon as the football seasons ends…..

Mike from Greece stroking a female gyr after insemination.

My life as a cameraman takes me to some weird places. For instance yesterday I was on a photo shoot with my canon camera and witness to a male being stripped for his semen. Not only that. I was then a part of another scene and stroked this beautiful birds back whilst a man stuck a plastic tube inside her…..I was of course watching for the first time the process that is A.I. or Artificial Insemination, not as some of you may have thought!!!

It was an odd day. From the moment Derek Stotton appeared wearing a semen collecting hat (I couldn’t take a picture for laughing) I knew this was no ordinary day. Derek Stotton, whom for those of you that don’t know him, is a larger than life character that has been involved in falconry since we were flying pterodactyls. In fact I think he was the first person to bring them into this country. Anyway, Derek has visitors from all around the world and yesterday was no exception.

Whilst I was ready with canon camera to get some pictures, a young falconer named Mike, from Greece arrived. I don’t think Mike had any idea what was in store for him. The look on his face when Derek appeared donning his semen collecting hat was one of part terror and one part amusement. He possibly thought he was in the dark scene from Pulp Fiction, in the basement. However he had a different look on his face later when Derek was getting him to massage a female gyr falcons back!!!

I wanted to do photography of a gyr donating semen to a hat. The process works by an imprint male flying on to the hat and pounding away. I thought it was an April fool when I was first told about men wearing hats and getting a falcon to mount their head and deposit semen in the hat. However when you consider the price of a gyr, well you gotta way these things up. The semen is then collected from the hat and used to inseminate a female by the use of a fancy turkey baster.

But alas by the time I got into the pen with canon digital camera this young stud had already spilt his milk in the hat and was having a cigarette in the corner of the room, reading the days papers. So it was on to the males with a foot fetish. These male imprints don’t dig on hats they like shoes. I don’t know if Derek had to wear special shoes for this guy but he couldn’t get enough of Derek’s Hush Puppies. After some small time chit-chat with Derek, the male got down on the floor on to some new plastic semen cards and “admired” Derek’s shoes. He sure did like those shoes. He was another no nonsense male in the bedroom and didn’t mess around after he had indulged in his foot fettish. The gyr male was back on his ledge, and settling down for a sleep like every other male on the planet after sex, only his was with a Hush Puppy, still whatever floats your boat.

Male imprint gyr falcon loving Derek’s foot wear…

Derek has an incubation room, along with a microscope and refrigerators the room was buzzing with electric activity. He took a previous sample of semen and told us he was ready for her. No special shoes, no hat was needed for this girl, she loved Derek for who he was. At any other time she would have gladly attached herself to mine or Mikes face. However at this time of the year she became like a gyr with a fever, and the only prescription was Derek.

Derek inseminating a female gyr.

It was amazing to take photographs of this powerful falcon, cute as a playful kitten as Derek gave her the magic. She will inseminated like this for a good few days, the best time however is after she lays an egg. The sperm will then swim down to the other eggs in waiting and hopefully fertilise them. It was a fascinating insight and makes you appreciate what breeders have to go through to get our birds. Derek has many other naturally breeding gyr falcons, but the next time I take photographs of them they’ll be with this years birds for sale. I’ll need to film a lot more football stars to buy a gyrkin to fly, but I never say never.

I was in the middle of a dream (Scarlett johanasson was in a starring role) when I was awoken by the phone at 6am this morning. My wife (Scarlett Johansson) learned over and said its early it’ll be for you. I was taking a while to come around.

She was right, it was for me. Apparently a bird of prey was sitting on a mast at the local sailing club and it had jesses hanging down. It was described as a hawk, brown in colour with yellow feet. It was a Harris Hawk, I told him following his description. After thawing out some frozen chicks I jumped in my new falconry van, and arrived. Now the sailing club is on a nature reserve, full of ducks, so I wanted to catch this thing up quick, so as the ranger didn’t have another escaped bird of prey upsetting the artic terns or other rare nesting birds. The gentleman that called was still watching and that was when I could see this was no easy(ish) to catch Harris hawk. The red nape shaheen was sitting watching the ducks…..

Now change the scene to yesterday evening and a local breeder is feeding his nice big white gyr falcons and enters the corridor to feed his red nape shaheens. It’s dark and windy and as he enters the corridor where the birds are temporarily tethered after recently arriving he see his female take off and exit through the wind struck door. He can’t believe it. For the wind to blow at the exact moment that she baits away, and for her to have chewed through a leash. He calls his wife (I blame mine for anything that goes wrong)  and must have felt that horrible feeling many of us have encountered on such an occasion. He drive’s round for the rest of the night hopelessly looking for an unmanned, unbelled falcon that is more than capable or becoming self sufficient in a very short space of time.

Now cut back to me. I’m expecting a Harris hawk. I look at my miserable looking defrosted chicks and think to myself, I’ve got more chance of luring in scarrlott johansson with these than this falcon. She eyes me, as I cautiously walk around her swinging two chicks tied together and let drop to the ground and pull to make twitch. She bobs her head, and then watches the tufted duck on the water. I get my binoculars. As I’m watching her, the wind picks up and a wind tube inflates and begins to flap, she tightens her feathers and……

She’s bait but her jesses have by a miracle, caught on a knot attached to the mast. I run and scale the mast like the little chimpanzee that lives in us all, take hold of her feet and lower myself down with one hand. After some flapping, biting, name calling and general abuse, my wife lets me back in the house with the newly caught falcon that is being surprising well mannered.

And here she is, before she goes back home. She’s still not interested in that chick. Anyway back to bed to see if I can get back to where I was….

The falconry season may well be over for most of us. Many of you will be having your hair cut, trimming back the beards and reacquainting yourselves with loved ones whom you may have only passed getting to the freezer for a day old chick before disappearing back into the field. Falconry really is a funny thing. To do it properly, it has to be like a vocation. Falconers that cannot give the time, usually give up through frustration, and those that do not have suitable land and quarry suffer the same fate.

So don’t relax. Don’t just put the bird in a pen and start communicating with your wife about things other than flying conditions and weight management. Get out there and get more land and look after what you’ve got.

Many of us have land to fly that could be dramatically improved if we put some time in to feed the available game and reduce the number of predators feeding on them.  This will be the same the world over. For us here in the UK, Partridge, ducks and Pheasant all benefit from some extra help feeding, looking after habitat and pest control. Look at www.basc.org.uk for loads of info on pest control habitat creation and feeding. So lets break it down.

Looking after habitat.

For ducks, habitat that gives protection can be as simple as placing a floating reef in the middle of your pond for the ducks to sleep on at night to be safe from foxes. This can be easily done by using an old wooden pallet covering the top and adding some buoyancy aids under the bottom such as sealed water bottles. Rope the new island to some form of anchor to keep in place. It doesn’t however save your ducks from Mink. So you should also place Mink, traps around your site. Many traps are available online one good store in the UK that post anywhere is  www.targetsports.co.uk There are cheaper though so have a good look on the net first. More tomorrow….

Jing Santos, came up with a good idea and suggested we have a picture of the week on falconryworld.com so as it was Jing’s idea here are the first two of his own longwings.
Image 1

2005 Black GyrxPeales with a pair of Canvasbacks from a single stoop. 2004 GyrxAnatum with immature drake Canvasback take from the same pond

Image 2