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Falconry Diary: training, flying, and hunting with a hawk (image heavy)


Kestrel

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Falconry is, by definition, the sport of hunting with a bird of prey. This includes not only falcons, but hawks, eagles, and sometimes owls as well. The sport has changed over the years, but at the core, it has remained widely the same as it was practiced thousands of years ago.

I am an apprentice falconer in the United States, and this is a journal/log of my juvenile red-tailed hawk, Revali. (if you want to ask him anything, he is taking questions here). He was trapped from the wild on August 12, 2017.

Before I start into the specifics of Revali's training, here are some general falconry FAQs I've prepared.

Spoiler
Q: Is the bird your pet?
A: No. Birds of prey are not social animals. They do not feel compassion or love. They do not like being petted. He is a hunting partner, kept for that purpose: hunting. If I do not have a way of hunting him, I would release him back into the wild.

Q: What is the point of taking a bird from the wild? Wouldn't it hinder him?
A: No. He is old enough to not be imprinted, so I will have no negative lasting impact on him. 90% of raptors do not see their second year. With me, he is learning to be a better hunter, and when he goes back into the wild he will forget his training with me after about a week and move on to raise better hunters.

Q: How do you know how old/the gender?
A: Most raptors have different plumage (feather coloring) when they're young. A red-tailed hawk does not get its red tail until its first molt. Revali has a brown branded tail, making him a first year bird.
Gender is told by weight in most raptors, the female being 1/3 larger than the male. We had to guess a bit on him, based on his weight he could either be a large male or a small female. He weighs about 1000g.

Q: How do you keep him from flying off?
A: Food! Raptors are lazy birds. He comes back because he knows I will 1) feed him and 2) he hunts better with me. This bond stops the moment I stop giving him food.

Q: What kinds of birds are used in falconry?
A: All raptors except for vultures, caracaras and owls are commonly used. Owls have been experimented with, but they're useless unless they're imprinted and they have a lower food drive than other raptors. They also have a bit of a nasty temperament.

Q: How do I start with falconry?
A: Depends on where you live. The following only applies to USA falconers, as that's where I'm located at.
- you want to meet more falconers. Join your state's falconry club. Join online falconry communities. Make yourself known. To get your license you will have to find an experienced falconer who is willing to take you under their wing for two years.
- study. Learn about birds of prey.
- Keep an open mind. I know that if I had been doing this how I wanted to, I would have had maybe a fourth of the success that I am having now.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: An arm and a leg.

 

Revali, day 1

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He's seriously confused. He doesn't know what I am, or what's happening. He's having issues standing on the glove. This is a bird directly off the trap.

Day 2

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That's better. He's still confused, but no longer quite as threatened by my presence. I can perform a full physical exam on him by this day while he is on fist.

Day 7, first steps

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The goal of falconry is to get the bird to come back to you. Here Rev is taking his first leaps to my glove, with a whistle command to get him to associate the whistle with food.

Day 10

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Day... probably 12? honestly, at this point I stopped counting

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We've moved outside.

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October 2017, free flying!

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Rev is off the line and flying free now, its just a matter of finding him some game to kill.

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Field video from four days ago: https://ordinaryredtail.tumblr.com/post/169039091914/out-with-the-hawk

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I'm hoping to down my first head of game with him sometime this month. Him and I are both struggling to jump anything up. But I'm going to a falconry meet next weekend, so fingers crossed some of the more experienced folks there can help me out with him.

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1 hour ago, Kestrel said:

I'm hoping to down my first head of game with him sometime this month. Him and I are both struggling to jump anything up. But I'm going to a falconry meet next weekend, so fingers crossed some of the more experienced folks there can help me out with him.

Good luck to you both!!!

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We caught a rat!

I'm going to refrain from posting images from today, as I'm not sure if they fall under the "explicit" category (it has blood and gore, nothing bad in my opinion but I've also seen a lot of stuff so it seriously doesn't phase me anymore)

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2 hours ago, Kestrel said:

We caught a rat!

I'm going to refrain from posting images from today, as I'm not sure if they fall under the "explicit" category (it has blood and gore, nothing bad in my opinion but I've also seen a lot of stuff so it seriously doesn't phase me anymore)

Perhaps you could put them under spoiler tags with a warning about the blood so that they're available for people who want to see, but people who don't want to see don't get ambushed.

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welp, here they are! Please let me know if this type of stuff isn't allowed, as I don't want to offend anyone, and I'll take it down! Falconry is, after all, a hunting sport, and this is natural behavior for hawks and other predatory birds like Revali, and a skill he must hone if he is to survive in the wild.

Hawk that caught a rat under the tag

Spoiler

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Edited by Kestrel
Removed a more graphic picture. (kestrel: edited the incorrect species name)
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@Kestrel @Sunbird

Actually, photos with blood etc. are a bit too much for this board, even behind spoiler tags. You can share them in PMs or post a link to those pictures hosted somewhere else, but don't include them in your posts.

I removed the more bloody photo from Kestrel's post. I guess now that we have that clear, there should be no further problems with you sharing your passion with us :) I personally find it really interesting!

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12 hours ago, Mestiv said:

@Kestrel @Sunbird

Actually, photos with blood etc. are a bit too much for this board, even behind spoiler tags. You can share them in PMs or post a link to those pictures hosted somewhere else, but don't include them in your posts.

I removed the more bloody photo from Kestrel's post. I guess now that we have that clear, there should be no further problems with you sharing your passion with us :) I personally find it really interesting!

Thank you for making this clear! I'll refrain from posting photos with his kills! If anyone would like to see them, let me know.

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DAILY ROUTINE: weight

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Revali requires daily weighing, sometimes twice a day if I do not weigh his food. What he eats is closely monitored, and this makes sure he is ready to fly and hunt. If he is too heavy, he won't respond to me as easily. If he is too light, he might not have the strength to hunt. It is a careful balance.

Today we also caught another rat!

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7 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Wait... how do you keep him from flying around the house and breaking things? 

Also this is so coool. 

I don't let him fly around the house! He has his own enclosure in the backyard where he can move around, and I fly him free in fields and the like. When in the house he is either tethered to me or tethered to a perch.

Edit: in the beginning of the training, I had him fly in the house but he was attached to a tether called a creance. he was never unsupervised on it, so nothing was broken.

Edited by Kestrel
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4 hours ago, Mestiv said:

And when you go outside and let him fly freely, what stops him from just flying away?

As mesBefore said, its in the FAQ. He comes back to me because I feed him. However, its important to note that its a gamble every time I release him. Depending on the weather (temperature, wind, etc) and his weight, he might not come back no matter how hard I try to call him. The hotter it is the less he needs me to feed him (metabolism of birds slows in the summer), and if its too windy he could catch a thermal, which carries him up, to a point where he wouldn't respond to me anymore.

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On 1/12/2018 at 9:01 AM, Zennix said:

Did you trap the bird yourself? This is so cool! I want a bird minion too! 

Yes. In the United States a falconer may take a juvenile bird from the wild with a state issued falconry license. Your permit class (apprentice, general, or master license) determines what birds you can and cannot take from the wild, and this varies state by state. As an apprentice the sponsor also has a final say in the bird (ie: my sponsor told me specifically no kestrels, even though I can have one as a Texas apprentice).

Rev and I hit the road this weekend to the Texas Hawking Association meet in Abilene! We saw tons of raptors, met falconers of all classes, and found some potential hunting partners not too far from home. All sorts of birds were there, mostly red-tailed hawks, harris hawks, and peregrines, but there were also ferruginous hawks and even a gyrfalcon! We had super fun.

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Didn't catch a thing, though, on all the hunts I went on. We met up with another group of falconers for the day and helped them flush game for their cast (group) of harris hawks, then they helped me fly Rev. The harrises had three quail chases and one bunny chase, and Rev had two awesome rabbit chases and he... well. Caught an armadillo. Didn't kill it; it got away completely unscathed, leaving my confused hawk in the middle of the field.

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