Falconry season is very nearly over for those of us that fly game, so what better time than now to reminisce about the past season. I said before that I was going to go through my training regime with this year late purchase tiercel. My Jerkin from last year had to be pulled out of the pen early after discovering that he had a swollen foot which ended up resulting in some rather expensive surgery. [Read more]
It’s not easy to do falconry hunting if you have a full time job. It’s very nearly impossible. With many birds moulting in the summer, and falconry hunting taking place in the winter months, the daylight is soon gone. If you are in a full time job, just when are you meant to do any falconry hunting? It’s a frustrating situation and one that I was very familiar with.
Fortunately, the employers that I have had the pleasure of working for have always been sympathetic (even if they didn’t want to be) with my falconry hunting and I was even lucky enough to have a job where my boss let me go out falconry hunting in my lunch hour (ex falconer himself). It was understood that if I was late, it was the birds fault and not mine. Sometimes I’d take a slip at a crow in the morning other times at dinner. This could lead to some fairly lengthy lunch times. I eventaully had to give up working for others five days a week, as life is just to short not to hunt with birds of prey, everyday.
However, if you really need to do some falconry hunting and are in a full time job, here’s five tips for getting the most out of the falconry hunting season.
1. Get [Read more]
Well here we are at last I have a new large longwing. After my Gyr/pere lost in a fight against a tree (stooping a cock Pheasant in high winds and colliding with a branch) and then my tiercel damaging its foot my game hawking has consisted of a lot of highs and low. The new fella, weighed in at 2ib and 7oz and was quite something on the fist after flying my Merlins. They are only to eager for the season to start so we can start hunting real quarry rather than the lure on the moor. The new Gyr is manning up nicley and other than walking with the hood off and sitting with me whilst I read or work on the PC there isn’t much to write. The manning stage of falconry is the slower part of the sport yet somehow so rewarding to turn a wild hissing beast into a calm bird that jumps to the ungarnished fist. I’m someway off that yet so we’ll have to do with some pictures.
Well here we are again. I’ve just done one week with my female Merlin, that I bought off Rob Cole from Cardiff, and got a male yesterday from Alan Horton in Devon. The female weighed in 225g when I got her last week which is about 8oz in real money. The male is 175g. After manning for all of about one hour the female fed on fist on a freshly killed quail in the Millennium stadium were I was to film speedway later that evening. Since then she has been with me most of the time. Whilst typing away on the keyboard or watching TV, she’s been steady as a rock.
If these were my first birds i would think falconry was easy. They’re so laid back its like they’ve been manned for weeks. So after the initial bits of manning and feeding on fist I’m now at the stage were the female is flying to a creance about 20ft away and she still weighs about 800g. The jack is feeding happily on fist, though is alittle bit jumpy. Both are to be fitted with Marshall radio telemetry track pack mounting systems. I’ll use a Marshall micro transmitter on both. I’ll take some photographs and maybe do a short video if I have time of fitting the Marshall track pack process which is relatively easy. I think they make a nice pair, should be great fun to fly…..Thanks to Carl cheshire from Gamehawker for the great cadge and travel box, and Steve Kelly for the indoor block. Hope all goes wel with the new site Carl . I’ll do a full review of both products soon.
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Clicker training is especially useful for animals that cannot be taught using negative conditioning (try smacking a killers whales bum, go on i dare you)
Well today I started to train my English pointers using clicker training, the results were nothing short of amazing. I’m going to write a diary online of my experience of clicker training my dogs every day. Later on in the year I’ll apply this learning to my falconry. [Read more]
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My name is Stephen Lea and I'm a falconer based in the UK.
I've been flying for over fifteen years and mainly fly longwings. As a falconer I know how important it is to hear about other peoples experiences. Shared information on the sport is invaluable. As well as being extremely interesting it can open up new perspectives, ignite ideas and save valuable time. I hope from reading these pages and sharing your own practices, you will do just that.
Read more at my about page
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