Falconry World

Check this video out on youtube. It’s a white tailed fish eagle playing with a tennis ball, the owner later had to go to hospital after he lost game set and a leg……well it punched his arm although I’m sure he said “The eagle was on the leg man…..”

Here are a couple of images from the photographer Rob Palmer. They certainly make it to the picture of the week. If you want to see more visit www.falconphotos.com for some other great falconry pictures.

Well its time for the summer brood grouse counts, so yesterday morning at 5am i made my way to Wemmergill moor in the north of England. The weather was poor, but the counts were good. Another year of high brood counts with a ratio of 3.5 young to adults, which is great. I’ve been so busy with Marshall telemetry (which is going great) but also dealing with silly things on the falconry forums it was a great feeling to get on the moor and remember what all this is about. The English pointers worked well in the rain and so did the new canon 40D digital camera. It was also the first time I’d really tested out the Marshall tracking collar on the dogs. It’s so easy to loose the dogs here if they go on point out of sight, or in the mist. The marshall collar even gives out a double bleep if the dog is pointing as opposed to running. Great bit of kit that should pay for itself over and over this year. I’m sitting here at present feeding my jack Merlin on fist after sorting out the many parcels leaving this office. It won’t be long until he’ll get the chance at larks and hopefully give a ringing flight. Well that’s all for now, I hope you like the pic…….

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.

Well this little brancher won’t be going hungry. This picture was taken by Garrett Smith in Secret Canyon, Utah, USA last week. They were looking for climbing areas and came across this eyrie. Good job mother wasn’t home to greet them; if she’s taking deer for her chick then a climber would be just fine as a main course for herself…… after she’s removed the North Face packaging of course.