North Devon Hawks

Patience is a virtue

2012-02-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

Definitely time that I posted something!

Orlando, the female Harris Hawk that I wrote about in the last post, continues to occupy a lot of my time. Because she wasn't touched at all for the the first 18 months of her life, she is a lot more difficult to train than birds that are bought at three months of age and then trained, which is the norm.

We've progressed to the stage where I can touch, stroke and generally fiddle about with her without losing a finger. This is important, because anyone who owns a bird of prey that is to be used in falconry needs to be able to check the bird for injuries, fit equipment etc.

It's always possible to "cast" a bird, that is getting someone to cover the bird with a towel while she is on your fist and thus immobilise her, but as you can imagine, the birds don't like this very much at all. Because the Harris Hawk is quite intelligent, for a bird of prey, they soon learn to be way of anyone sneaking up on them with a towel. If the casting always takes place in the same room, they can become unwilling to enter that room.

But as I say, I am now trusted enough to be able to handle her most of the time. Except for her feet. Her tolerance of being touched does not yet extend to her feet. She will allow me touch them a couple of times every two or three minutes, but no more than that. I've learned to watch for the tell-tale shift of balance as she takes the weight off one foot preparatory to striking me with it. But as with most things connected with falconry, time and patience will carry me through.

The sparrowhawk, Artemis, is taking a break now after a mid winter career of starling scaring. The winter has been generally mild down here in Devon so there are less starlings around. She did a good job of scaring them away from the farms where we were employed. When we were outside, I would point her at a tree full of starlings and she'd head straight for it at speed. She'd fly quite low and then pull up at the last moment into a steep climb which carried her up into the branches. Inside the cattle sheds, she flew low and fast, chasing the starlings around, through, over and under the various obstacles until either she needed a rest, or she caught one.

The tail feathers of a sparrowhawk are very brittle. They don't bend anything like as much as those of the Harris and are very prone to breaking. Artemis now has only a stump of a tail, a shadow of its former glory. It doesn't reduce her speed but it does make her less manouverable. The tail feathers will be renewed, along with all her other feathers, during the coming summer in the annual moult.

During the moult, the feathers drop out, in a regular pattern, over a period of months and new ones grow out to replace them. Because the feathers come out in a regular pattern, the bird is never "lop-sided" by having say two wing feathers missing on one side and none on the other. Over the years, I've noticed, that the Harris feathers drop out at two day intervals. So if there is a wing feather on the floor of the aviary this morning, then the corresponding feather from the other wing, will be on the floor in two days time.

Falconers tend to keep their birds moulted out feathers ( the big ones, that is), so that they can be used to repair any damaged or broken feathers on the bird. This is called "imping" and basically involves fitting an internal splint or brace made from bamboo or plastic within the hollow spine of the feather that is on the bird and gluing a section from a moulted feather onto the splint. If it's done well, you can't see the join ( as Eric Morecombe would say).

Anyone interested in flying hawks is welcome to get in touch with wwwNorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk We fly around the North Molton/ Withypool area of Exmoor in Devon, all year round, any day of the week. I enclose a couple of photos, both taken by customers recently.

Stroppy Harris and runaway Spar.

2012-01-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

To be fair, my new Harris Hawk is not really stroppy, just intensely suspicious and quite aggressive. She has never been touched, flown or anything during her 18months, so it's not surprising that she is taking a long time to learn to trust me.

I started training her as one would a new young bird. So for the first couple of weeks, I just spent increasing periods of time sitting in her aviary, reading or talking to her. When she was able to bear this without trying to fly through the wall, I progressed to taking her from her perch and holding her on my fist, still in her aviary. Then it was a progression to taking her outside, on my fist and getting her to eat while there. Surprisingly, this bit of the training was achieved quite quickly and she soon tore into her food while clinging to my fist. Now we watch television together ( indoors, her aviary isn't that luxurious), and go for slow cautious strolls around the garden and house.

Over the past two or three weeks, I've started stroking her with a feather and as she gradually came to accept that, I now stroke or touch her with my finger. This is still at the early stages, and she is only just coming to accept it. I've been pecked dozens of times and "footed" ( grabbed by her claws) several times. Fortunately for me, her claws are blunt as she has a concrete floor in her aviary. Later on, I'll cover it with small gravel, and use a nail file to sharpen her claws, but that is several months away. The other day, due to my carelessness, she had three of my right hand fingers trapped in one foot while the other clung tight to the glove on my other hand, so tightly that I couldn't get my hand out. So I was effectively handcuffed until she relaxed her grip, after twenty or twenty-five minutes. The natural rachet mechanism within her foot means that once the grip goes on, it stays on until she makes a conscious decision to loosen it. If her claws had not been blunt it would have been a trip to the local hospital for me, for stitches.

Once she is on the fist she is pretty calm, although she will bate ( attempt to fly off) occasionally. However, she doesn't step up onto the fist like my other birds. Instead, she attacks it, grabbing it with one foot with all her power as though she were trying to kill it. Then she steps up onto it.

She's quite big, and I think her flying weight will be somewhere around 2lbs 6 or 7 ounces. But that is some time off. She's taking much longer to train than a young bird would, but as I'm in no hurry, that's not a problem.

The Spar ( Sparrowhawk) chose her time superbly and demonstrated just how the species gained a reputation for "sulking" and being difficult to train.

A local TV journalist, Janine Jensen from BBC Devon's "Spotlight" programme, came along to film Artemis scaring away starlings from a farm in West Devon, near Bradford. I explained what was going to happen.

" Bird flies to tree where starlings are gathering, starlings fly off, sparrowhawk comes back to me for a morsel of food".

Janine asked a few intelligent questions to act as an introduction to the piece of film, and then I released Artemis, who totally ignored the starlings, flew to another tree and sat there for ten minutes, totally ignoring me.

Classic sparrowhawk behaviour, probably brought on by me flying her before she was ready to perform. She then lead us all over the surrounding countryside for the next half-hour, with me using the telemetry to find her in various woods, hedges etc. She eventually consented to me picking her up from a fence post about half a mile from where we had started.

Not a great film debut. Fortunately, Cassius was available to chivvy off the starlings and save the reputation of North Devon Hawk Walks.

It does demonstrate that falconry is very much a partnership, and the bird is the senior partner.

.

Sparrowhawks and starlings.

2011-12-19T02:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted here, sorry about that. A new business venture, using the Sparrowhawk, Artemis, to chase off starlings from local dairy farms has been taking up a lot of my time.

It's proved very succesful, and we've operated on three farms so far with another three booked in for the future. Timing is everything, as I need to get there with the hawk as soon as the starling flocks turn up, so that they get the idea that there is a resident predator around the farm, and that they would be better off elsewhere. It's been mild this winter so far, so although there were a few early flocks of starlings, the huge flocks from Russian and Finland have not yet turned up. When they do, I'll get the phone call from the farms and it will be another week of very early starts, getting to the farm at dawn so as to be ready to let loose Artemis as soon as the starlings turn up. They tend to be quite regular and at one of the farms I've been visiting they would always turn up within five minutes of 08.10 .

AS I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Artemis doesn't actually have to catch any starlings to have an effect. She just flies at the flock as it comes into roost in a tree and they immediately beat a retreat. If we can keep doing that, they push off completely.

An article about our adventures so far appears in the most recent edition of Countrymans Weekly, a newspaper dealing with all sorts of country sports.

A local BBC reporter for BBC Spotllight is also interested in making a short film about the sparrowhawk versus the starlings , so Artemis may be appearing on the small screen.

Sparrowhawks are famous for having very brittle tail feathers, which snap easily. Artemis is no exception and her tail is a disgrace, only about half the length it should be. It doesn't slow her down, but it does make her less manoueverable. However, this isn't as bad as it could be, as I don't want her catching small birds, her natural prey. ( They have enough problems in the UK as it is, given the large number of cats).

It is possible to repair a broken feather, by "imping" it. That is, using an internal splint to fix a replacement feather to the shaft of the old, broken one. Trouble is, you can't get sparrowhawk feathers for love nor money ( I've tried), so if I do it, I'll have to use feathers from the tail of a pigeon, which are the closest in size and shape. That should confuse any amateur bird-watchers in the vicinity.

To add to my self-imposed workload, I've also got a new female Harris Hawk. She was given to me and is proving a real handful as she is over a year old and has never been touched. More anon.

Hunting with hawks

2011-10-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Well,here at North Devon Hawk Walks, the hunting season is with us and Lady Macbeth has already accounted for two pheasants. Not particularly spectacular flights, both ended up in deep undergrowth and were a result of her stalking the pheasants while they were on the ground and she was circling overhead. She's had seven years practice and is quite good at it. She gets a reward of fresh meat while she is sitting on her kill, then I ( diplomatically and carefully) trade the dead pheasant for a lump of meat, without feathers, that she can eat immediately. As soon as she's given me the pheasant, she loses interest in it. Yet two minutes later, we're off hunting again and she's as keen as ever.

Above are some photos of Puzzle, my Brittany. She is a hunter, pointer,retriever, but I use her only for pointing. Macbeth has learned to pay attention to what the dog is doing and if the hawk goes off after something the dog will dash to keep up with her. They're a very good partnership, but it's taken seven years to get to this happy state of affairs. Cassius, my one year old male hawk is still a bit wary of the dog and she tends to put him off hunting. The top and bottom photos above show Puzzle pointing. It's a very distinctive bit of body language. It's as though the dog has hit an invisible wall and frozen solid. The smell of the pheasant, or rabbit, stops her dead in her tracks. It's got so that now I can tell how far ahead of her the pheasant/rabbit is, by noting how low to the ground her head is. The lower her head, the closer it is. The middle photo, I've included purely because it reminds me that dogs are descended from wolves.

At North Devon Hawk Walks, I'm lucky to have access to great hunting grounds, for pheasants, and so far this season I've taken out two customers, who both had a great time. Several more customers are booked in for our three hour hunts and I hope to get some photos of birds and dogs in action.

Take a look at www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk to get an idea of what we do.

More hawk pictures.

2011-09-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy time at North Devon Hawk Walks. This last August has been the busiest since I started up business three years ago. The hawks and I have been out every day, often twice a day. There seems to be an increasing demand by people to get close to birds of prey. I suppose every county show now has a falconry display of some sort, which excites people's interest, and makes them want to learn a bit more about falconry.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of repeat business, that is people who've been on one hawk-walk coming back for another. Also surprising is the number of local residents who have become customers. I had assumed that most of the customers would be visiting tourists, but I suppose about seventy percent are locals, or people visiting relatives who are locals.

We were out the other day at the Mid Devon Natural History Society and I attach a couple of photos that one of the members took. Looking at the picture of the Sparrowhawk, you can see why they are among the birds referred to as " broadwings" in falconry. Their deep wings help make them very manouverable. Somebody said that they reminded them of the wings of the Spitfire fighter plane, which was also very nimble. This, coupled with their long tails which act as very efficient rudders, mean that the hawks can slalom their way through a forest in pursuit of their prey.

In addition to the hawks, I took along a selection of creepy-crawlies, courtesy of Joe De Witt Vine who runs Reptobug. He specialises in kids parties and educational visits where his giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects, snakes etc always go down a storm. Kides love them. ( The adults, of course, are horrified). I often take along a selection of his bugs as an interesting aside to the hawks. I've got used to people assuming that the cockroaches are there as examples of what the hawks eat!

Sparrowhawk pictures

2011-08-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of Artemis ( she's got a name now!) having just enjoyed a gruesome dinner.
She's now 2 months old and looks almost fully grown-up. An amazing change from only a few weeks ago. She's come out with me on all the hawk-walks for the past few weeks, and although she doesn't fly, she gets lots of experience meeting new people and seeing new sights. When I leave her in the car, she perches on the steering wheel, much to the amusement of passers-by. Tomorrow, we're off to visit a care home in Taunton to show the residents the birds, then off to the Mid Devon Natural History Society meeting near Tiverton.

Out and about with the hawks.

2011-08-05T05:12:00.000-07:00

This is a busy time of year at North Devon Hawk Walks. Since I last posted, we've been to the North Devon show as well as the Mid Devon show. My friend Tom, his wife Sam and baby Daniel ( also known as The Youngest Falconer in Britain) helped me run the stall and display the birds.

This year, as well as having Lady Macbeth and Cassius the Harris Hawks on hand, we also had the Sparrowhawk and Tom's latest addition, an African Eagle Owl. ( Pictures to follow). The birds were, as always, extremely popular and we spent the entire day on our feet showing them to the crowd around the stall, answering questions and posing them for photographs. There is something about being close to a bird of prey that appeals to an awful lot of people!

The Sparrowhawk is growing at an alarming rate and has gone from being a ball of fluff to a proper bird in about three weeks. People at the show were amazed that the cute lump of fluff in the photo was the same as the bird standing on my fist. She doesn't have a name yet, so we invited people to think of a name for her, with a prize of a free hawk walk voucher to the best name. I haven't yet had time to look through the seven pages of suggestions.

The Harris Hawks have been busy over the past weeks introducing people to falconry on Exmoor. It's school holiday time now so lots of children have been getting up close to Cassius, who most agree is a friendly little fellow, and Lady Macbeth who most agree is a lot more aloof, and aware of her own power and dignity. That's the trouble with giving animals historic or literary names, they tend to live up to them.

The whole gang can be seen at the tearooms in Withypool on Exmoor, most weekend mornings or lunch times as we wait there to meet customers. I have the Sparrowhawk in her portable nest sitting on one of the outside tables, where she spends her time absorbing new sights and sounds, and giving the local blackbirds and sparrows the evil eye. It's important for a young falconry bird to be exposed to as much as possible, in a controlled and safe way, as soon as possible. That's so that in a couple of months time when we're out hunting she's not going to be scared witless just because she sees a man on a horse, or someone wearing sunglasses or whatever. It's part of the manning process, and as I said in one of the earlier posts, it never stops.

Sparrowhawk pictures

2011-07-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

Life and death.

2011-07-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

Rather a pretentious title, but it seems appropriate.

I'm afraid the buzzard didn't recover, his injuries were just too severe. In spite of the glucose, anti-biotics and TLC, as well as the help and advice of my vet, he died.  It's sad, but I did the best I could.

In the wild, something like 40% of all birds of prey die within their first year. This can be from injury, disease or starvation and the factors can be cumulative. For instance a young bird loses a few feathers making a bad landing in a tree. This means that it can't quite catch a prey item, which means that it gets a bit weak from lack of food. It picks up an internal parasite from somewhere ( maybe eating carrion), and gets weaker. Because it can't fly fast enough to catch food for itself, it starves or is taken by another predator. A predator has a very precarious existence, in the wild.

By contrast, a non-predator sometimes seems to have it made. Someone once pointed out to me that " If you're a herbivore, living somewhere like Exmoor, the ground is a never-ending platter of food, laid out in front of you".     True enough, I suppose, but not when the ground is three feet deep in snow like it has been for the last couple of winters.

At the moment, there's no snow, just rain. I knew Devon was meant to be a bit damp when we moved here three years ago, but I didn't realise just how damn damp. My car has developed a green mould on the black rubber surround of the windscreen. It's no consolation to know that the summers have been " unseasonably wet" for the past three years, when you're developing webbed feet.

A week ago today, I picked up our latest recruit. This is a female sparrowhawk ( in falconry terms,a "spar" , as opposed to a male sparrowhawk, which is a "musket"). She was born on 16th June, and is developing at an astonishing rate. When I got her, she wasn't able to stand. She learned to do that over just three days and is now happily trotting around. Over the past two days, she's learned to stand on one leg, as hawks do when they are relaxed. She's also learned to scratch her head with one foot, without falling over.
But the biggest change has been in her appearance. A week ago, she was a ball of white fluff, with a few brown feathers sticking out of one end. Now, her breast feathers have come through while her back and wing feathers seems to grow as you look at them.
This fast development is part of Nature's way of giving the birds as good a start as possible. While they're in the nest, unable to fly, they're extremely vulnerable. She seems to know this at some level and spends most of her waking time plucking at the white down to get rid of it and encourage proper feather growth.

I took her outside today for the first time, to meet some customers on a hawk-walk. The rain held off long enough for us to see some nice flying from Lady Macbeth and Cassius. Additionally, the customers were able to admire the sparrowhawk as she sat in mobile nest on the passenger seat of my car.   One of the customers, Claire, is conservation officer for the British Dragonfly Association. What a great job! She's also a keen photographer so hopefully, I'll be posting some of her pictures either on www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk , or on here.   In the meantime, I attach a few I've taken recently.
Next Saturday, we'll all be at the mid-Devon show, together with my friend Tom and his son Daniel ( also known as the youngest falconer in the UK). With Daniel in his pram, and the sparrowhawk in her nest, it'll look more like a creche than a falconry stall!

Injured buzzard.

2011-07-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

We have a new arrival at North Devon Hawk Walks. (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) A friend found an injured buzzard by the roadside and brought him to us on Saturday. He's obviously had a hard life so far. His left eye is destroyed and he was very weak and wobbly. His feathers are very dishevelled ( always a sign of a bird that is in trouble) and his flight muscles seem undeveloped. His one good eye was not big and round as one would expect in a healthy bird, but more slit-like. That's anothe obvious sign of a bird that is ill or very weak.

He is obviously quite young as he still has the speckled plumage of a juvenile. That is, one that has not yet been through the moult and grown his adult plumage. I would guess that he's been injured somehow, and because his eyesight is so impaired, he's had difficulty getting enough to eat.

My friend said that the bird had actually been hit by a motorcycle, but there's no evidence of external injury. His wings and legs appear to be working OK, but he was very, very weak and barely able to stand.

After checking him over, I left him alone in one of the carrying boxes I use for my hawks. This is a large, light-proof box. An injured or sick bird should always be kept warm, dry and undisturbed. The darker the better, so that the bird feels safe and doesn't get stressed or scared which would only add to it's problems.

So, after consultation with my vet, I began feeding him a glucose solution via a crop-tube. This is just a syringe of liquid attached to a thin, flexible tube which is passed down the throat and into the bird's crop. This is not difficult to do, but it needs great care as it is possible to get liquid into the bird's lungs which is obviously extremely dangerous.

I took him to the vet yesterday ( Monday) who checked him over and gave me some antibiotics to administer in the same way. The eye injury would almost certainly mean that he has got some sort of infection. His mutes ( that is, his droppings) had quite a lot of green in them, which is a sign of intestinal infection.

He is now much stronger and taking an interest in his surroundings. He is still refusing to eat solid, or even mashed, food, so we are keeping up the crop-tubing. He seems very tame, but this is actually a bad sign. A wild bird should be afraid of humans and if it allows itself to be picked up or handled without protest, it means that the bird is ill and/or weak.

I hope that after the course of antibiotics, he will be able to tackle solid food. Once he can do that, we'll have to decide whether he is fit enough to be released back into the wild. Buzzards are very common around here, and I suppose, realistically, that one more or less would be no great loss. But if you keep birds of prey, there is something very poignant and touching about comparing your fit, healthy, well-fed birds with something as battered and sorry-looking as an injured wild bird. There is a great desire to bring the wild creature up to the best condition you can. We'll certainly do the best we can.

I'll post some pictures soon.

Other news from North Devon Hawk Walks.

Last week, I had a couple of people on one of our Bird of Prey Ownership Courses. ( details on www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) This was Greg and his son Laurence. They'd been thinking about getting a bird of prey for some time and had done a lot of research and preparation. They met me in Barnstaple, where the Devon Wildlife group had invited me to take part in their annual show, and after meeting Lady Macbeth and Cassius decided to invest in a course.

They did very well during the five days of the course and got a load of hands-on experience which will make them more confident and better able to deal with the practicalities of handling, feeding and training a bird of prey. When there is only a couple of people to deal with, you can cover a lot of ground, and they were able to pack a lot of learning into the five days. Apart from the handling and manning, they tackled imping, coping,casting, using the creance and recovering the bird from a kill.

The only downside was that they were both considerably better than me at pool and thrashed me in our local pub where we went to celebrate the end of the week. I hadn't played for twenty years, and I was rubbish then too.

Time to feed the buzzard again.

Mantling.

2011-06-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd describe a little of my experience of how the two hawks differ in this regard. Mantling is when the hawk hides the food or prey by spreading her wings and tail over it. The idea, of course, is to hide it from other predators.

When I take people out on Exmoor with North Devon Hawk Walks, I usually end the walk by firing a few heads of quail up into the air for Macbeth to chase, and, usually, catch. It's quite spectacular and always gets a cheer from the customers when she catches it in mid-air. There's a lot going on when she chases it. She has to work out when it is going to stop going up and start coming down, she has to allow for the wind strength and direction blowing it, and her, around. She flies upwards, with her head well back, looking upwards. When she has got close enough to it, she flips up and back, so that she is almost standing on her tail in the air, and grabs at it with her claw. If she misses it, she turns into a corkscrew dive to try and catch it up. Quite spectacular as I say.

Anyway, once she's eaten the head ( which is about the size of the top joint of my thumb), her behaviour changes remarkably. Up until that point she has been coming to the customer's fist for a small piece of meat ( rabbit or quail), eating it on the fist and then usually hopping or flying off. While crunching up a quail head, she will mantle as though her life depended upon it. When she's finished eating it, she is quite aggressive to any move being made towards her upon the glove, but only for about thirty seconds. After that she calms down and she's back to her normal self.

I think the blood, brains and bone in the quail head cause adrenaline to be released in Macbeth's blood stream and this triggers the mantling and possessiveness. ( Sorry to be so gory).

Just lately she has not been catching the heads and seems to be not quite so hell-for-leather chasing them. I think she's worked out that what goes up, must come down, and all she has to do is mark where it lands. The mantling and possessiveness is still there, but the flight is not nearly so exciting. I think I'll have to find a way of making it impossible for her to get the head without catching it in mid-air. Not sure how. In fact, I've no idea how !

Cassius, being a lot younger, is not nearly so successful at catching the heads but he is still very excited about the whole game and gives it his best shot. But, no mantling. He's just his normal, placid self. People are sometimes surprised by how different the personalities of the two hawks are, they expect one bird to be pretty much the same as the other, as I've described, they're not !

Lady Macbeth of NorthDevonHawkWalks

2011-06-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Lady Macbeth landing on a customer of North Devon Hawk Walks

2011-06-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Falconry history.

2011-06-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Just got back from giving a talk to one of our local chapters of the University of the 3rd Age, in Filleigh. People often want to learn something about the birds and the history of falconry, and I'm always happy to oblige. I enjoy the research, and it seems to be an almost inexhaustable subject. Usually, someone has been out for a hawk walk with us at North Devon Hawk Walks, (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk for details), found it interesting and arranged for me to visit their group.

Falconry itself is probably about three thousand years old. One of, if not the, oldest depiction of someone hawking is an Etruscan mosaic. The Roman weren't interested in it but most of the nations they ruled were, and there are Celtic sculptures and brooches depicting it. It probably began in the middle East and really reached its highest point in Europe during the Middle Ages. Following the Crusades a lot of Middle-Eastern influences were imported to Europe ( spices, building techniques, and ancient knowledge etc), falconry received a boost from this and from the interest of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick the second, who wrote a book about it in the 13th century.

Although it began as a way of getting meat on the table, falconry later developed into almost a craze among the nobility and rising middle classes in Europe. It became a way of showing conspicuous consumption ( you needed a lot staff, land, money and time to practice it), and competitiveness ( my falcon is bigger, braver, flies higher than yours). Along with other forms of hunting it became one of the necessary accomplishments of any gentleman. A falcon that flew high, attacked birds bigger and more dangerous than itself and was victorious, was believed to display all the attributes a brave young man should aspire to. It is no accident that many shields and coats of arms were decorated with eagles, hawks and falcons. Princes and aristocrats in medieval and Renaissance Europe were fanatical about it. For many it took up nearly all their time and most of their energy,. There were few who did not regard it as their privilege and duty and as a very serious occupation.

Laws relating to falconry give an indication of how it was viewed.

In 1320 the Grand Prince of Moscow made falconers above the law. ( That would be nice !)

Under King Henry 8th of England, it was illegal, without the express authority of the king, to fly a bird bred in England. Falconers had to import their birds from elsewhere. This law aimed to ensure a regular supply of hunting birds in the mews of the king and aristocracy.

Charles 6th of France restricted falconry to nobles.

A good falcon was not only a great favourite who went everywhere with her master ( King Harold of England had his with him when he was held captive in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings, 1066) but she was also a valuable possession, the result of long training. In England there were strict laws with heavy penalties about returning falcons to their rightful owners. A stray falcon had to be reported to the Sheriff of the county, by law. In the 15th century it was common to see in churches wax effigies of hawks with candles burning nearby and prayers being said for the return of a prized, lost falcon, or for it's recovery from sickness.

The Church authorities passed numerous laws over centuries, in England, aimed at getting the local priests to spend less time hawking and more time on their church duties. The fact that they had to keep on making these laws indicates that they were being ignored.

So, a long history. Falconry nearly died out in the UK in the 1950s, because of persecution by gamekeepers ( protecting pheasants) and the use of pesticides. Only a handful of falconers kept it going. In the 70's, people began importing the Harris Hawk ( Parabuteo Unicinctus) from America. It bred well in captivity and most people who begin hawking nowadays begin with a Harris Hawk.

Anyway, my talk went down well, the birds behaved themselves (you can't house-train a hawk), and everyone enjoyed themselves. I've got another talk tomorrow, in Tiverton. Hopefully I'll be able to use the dreaded PowerPOint to show some pictures so people can see how the different species of birds have different wing/tail shapes and how this affects their hunting techniques.

Manning

2011-06-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Manning is the process of getting the hawk used to you and helping her learn to trust you. It never ends, although the basics can be achieved quite quickly with Harris Hawks. Over the past week, I've taken Lady M and Cassius to a charity event at the Sportsman's Inn, on Exmoor. They flew in front of a small crowd and had no problems with landing on the fists of people in the crowd ( in exchange for a small piece of meat!). A few days after that we went to the High Bullen Hotel and golf course, in Chittlehamholt, Devon, where a film crew spent twenty minutes recording the hawks flying to and from guests as part of a promotional video. Today, we were at the North Devon Wildlife Trust event in central Barnstaple. We were there all day and must have had several hundred people come up to the hawks, admire them and ask questions about them and the Hawk-Walks (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk).

Lady M took it all in her stride because she's done lots of this sort of thing before. The Samba band didn't bother her, neither did the stilt walkers, or the crowds. Cassius got a little anxious at times, so went back into his travelling box for a rest. The boxes are dark, he felt secure in there and was able to rest undisturbed. It was a very good experience for him and as he has been exposed, in a safe and controlled way, to a lot of new experiences it will help him become more and more confident and bomb-proof. The thing is, the hawks believe that any new and unpleasant experience is the fault of the falconer. After all, it's the falconer who is making them experience it. So the whole manning process needs to be done slowly and gently. As I say, it never ends.

Shakespeare.

2011-05-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

So, a little about the hawks I have.

Lady Macbeth is 8 years old. I purchased her when she was three months old, from Steve Wright, a well-known falconer in the UK. He used to run the Heart of England falconry centre associated with the Mary Arden centre, a Shakespearen themed museum and display centre. There was a tradition that all his hawks got named after Shakespearen characters. We were living in Kelso on the Scottish Borders at that time, so I was looking for a name to describe a blood-thirsty, female, Scottish tyrant. Hence Lady Macbeth. Sometimes she live up to the name a bit too much!

The other hawk is Cassius, 8 months old. Purchased from a breeder in Monmouthshire. He's named after the character in Julius Caesar who is described thus : " Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look".
Very appropriate for a smaller, slimmer hawk. He flies at 1lb 9 ounces as opposed to Lady M's 2lb 4 ounces.

Yesterday I met Norman Towe, a very experienced falconer. He and his wife come down to stay at the White Horse in Exford every year. He usually brings a couple of owls and hawks and undertakes a few speaking engagements while here. He's a very interesting character, and has had some fascinating jobs . He's a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford among other things. You meet all sorts in falconry.

He mentioned a sobering statistic. He has twenty-four birds, twenty-two of which are rescue cases given by people who took up falconry and then realised they couldn't cope.

The Harris Hawk has made falconry available to thousands who would never have been able to cope with the birds traditionally used. Unfortunately, many of this new generation didn't do enough research or think hard enough about the costs, time and effort involved. When I take people out on hawk-walks ( http://www.northdevonhawkwalks.co.uk/) , they are always surprised to learn that no sort of licence or training is required for anyone who wants to take up falconry.

I'm out with the birds tomorrow at the Sportsman's Inn on Exmoor. They're having a charity day with all sorts of attractions and the birds will be giving a flying display. I hope the weather is better than it is today.
Cassius in particular gets water-logged in damp or rainy conditions. Being young, his feathers don't seem to be as waterproof as Lady M's. They've both begun the annual moult and have lost half a dozen big wing and tail feathers each, with new bright feathers just beginning to peep through.

Enough for today.

Welcome !

2011-05-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I run North Devon Hawk Walks and spend most of my time messing around with hawks on Exmoor, in Devon. I hope to use this blog to help introduce people to falconry and to share my experience of these fascinating creatures.

I've seen blogs described as " vanity web-sites" and I don't intend to let that happen to me! I'll be telling you what the hawks are up to, how they are behaving during our outings, either on hawk-walks or hunting for rabbits and pheasants, and passing on any tips or useful information I pick up that may be of use to other people owning, training or caring for hawks.

I have just two hawks, Lady Macbeth ( an 8 year old female), and Cassius ( a 9 month old male). Both are Harris Hawks. I'll be posting pictures of them in the near future. I hope to buy a female Sparrowhawk later this year. More about that later.

More about myself and the hawks at my website http://www.northdevonhawkwalks.co.uk/