I’m a reader of profiles. Secretive ones diminish my interest somewhat because I’m reluctant to assume.
The history of it is part of what attracts me to the pursuit. It’s the oldest field sport known to man, and has a documented history reaching back over four thousand years. The techniques, language, and equipment used today are basically the same.
There is a formal apprenticeship process in the US;* for you to get an apprentice (some states use “novice”) falconry license you have to have a licensed master or general falconer willing to vouch for you, sign all your paperwork, and oversee your training for a two-year period. The process varies from master to master–some have a very regimented training process with specific requirements to be met, some are very “hands off” and wait for you to call them up with questions.
In either case, there are some general realms of knowledge an apprentice is expected to master before being promoted to a general falconry license. A few of these are: trapping, training, overcoming various common difficulties, taking and raising an eyass, basic medical care and emergency first-aid, and the handling of the types and species of birds the apprentice expects to pursue as a general falconer. Some of these, such as the take and raising of eyasses, are activities not allowed to an apprentice, but will be allowed under your general license, so it’s the sponsor’s duty to see to it you have some level of competence before graduating you.
Finding a sponsor is a big deal, and one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. Licensed, practicing falconers are few and far between and there may only be one or two in your part of the state. Finding someone who’s also willing to put in the considerable time and effort to take on an apprentice for two years shrinks your pool considerably. Finding someone meeting those requirements in local proximity whose practices you also trust and respect occasionally leaves an aspiring apprentice with no options at all.
I was fortunate to find a local falconer who happened to be female and is also married to a master falconer. She was thrilled to take on a female apprentice and have more women involved in the sport, so it all worked out pretty well. The only downside is they are both avid longwing enthusiasts and fly falcons over waterfowl exclusively, while my area of interest is entirely in the broadwing, or species. I sometimes have to check in with other master falconers when I have broadwing-specific questions, or want to have discussions about the finer points of dirthawking**. Luckily, it’s a very tight-nit field and people are always more than thrilled to chat with an apprentice who needs advice or just wants some hawk-talk.
Thanks for the ethics opinion. I tend to agree, although as I said in my first post, I am definitely upsetting the natural balance in the predator/prey relationship, and hold no illusions about that. Falconry is not about a human hunting with a raptor’s help, it’s about a human assisting the hawk in their hunt. I enjoy watching a wild predator work and the taking of prey in that way, though I do not and would not enjoy killing animals as a hobby with more technical weapons. This hobby gives a person a glimpse into a wild world most human beings can only ever imagine in the most generic sense. It’s a truly amazing thing to be involved in.
*The process differs in different countries, so check your local laws carefully. Governments tend not to have a sense of humor about the illegal possession of birds of prey.
**Affectionate self-given nickname for falconers hunting furred ground quarry.
Err, take out that superfluous comma and conjunction, and change “tight-nit” to “tight-knit”. Stupid timeouts. :mad:
Speaking of falconry, I see a break in the crummy weather and am going to dash out and fly my bird before it starts pouring again–I’ll be back to answer the rest in a couple hours! Thanks everyone for your interest.
Other that as a hobby, were (or are) there once professional falconers who would harvest prey for a living? If a nobleman was planning a banquet he’d likely need many rabbits, or quail, or other animals. How many of these animals could one falconer collect in one outing? I guess what I’m asking is, was falconry commonly done for the table, and how effecient was it? Or was it always a hobby.
NajaNivea, you have a very cool trade. Did you just decide to look into it one day?
Why is that? They are almost purely a product of domestication. The polecat is the wild form, the black footed ferret is not the same and is still rare as hell. They were once used by humans in a similar manner to falcons, but I doubt many ferret owners are still flushing rabbits out of holes.
Peregrine Falcons, at least in the San Francisco area, are have well adapted to city life. Several years ago I was sitting in Union Square quietly sipping a cappuccino when I heard a loud commotion close to me. When I looked toward the sound I saw one of these beautiful falcons had killed a dove or small pigeon. He didn’t seem to be too bothered by my presence, but when a nearby woman screamed he took the bird to a nearby ledge and finished his lunch. He probably thought she wanted his catch. 
And once a pair nested on the roof of a neighbors house, which surprised me a little because it was just a two-story house and the nest was in the roof’s valley but in the open.
Note that I didn’t say “opposed to”.
When I watch how my daughter’s ferrets act, they don’t seem truly domesticated. And they seem to always want out. This escape tendency, I’ve read, is a common trait for ferrets. They are physically quite cute though.
Yeah, I’m aware of their history.
NajaNivea, is your falconry, as you practice it, a trade?.
Whee!
When I was in college I worked at a locally owned pet store. One of my co-workers was an avian sciences major and second-in-command at the California Raptor Center. I visited a few times and thought it was such a cool opportunity, I started volunteering. Through that gig, and the incredibly experienced folks that worked there, I gained a lot of experience handling a very wide variety of species of birds of prey. I knew of the sport of falconry, but also knew the tremendous time and dedication it takes to be involved, so never really seriously considered getting involved, and anyway had never actually met anyone who had any first-hand involvement. Also, part of the requirements are that you build, or at least have access to, a mews and weathering yard–facilities for housing a bird of prey–which usually have to be constructed from scratch. As a college student in rental housing, that just wasn’t anything like an option.
Fast forward a bunch of years, and the NajaHusband and I bought a house with a lovely, secluded backyard. Coming out of a serious life-funk I needed to find a couple serious things to occupy my time, mind, and body. It so happens that my detached garage has an ante-room that’s not being used for anything, and I contacted my state department of fish and wildlife to see what it actually takes to get a falconry license. They sent me a stack of paperwork and laws a half-inch thick(!) one sheet of which was a list of all the general and master falconers in the state willing to sponsor an apprentice.
I won’t go into the whole process because it’s an endless list of paperwork, licenses, fees, equipment checklists, and so on. The most interesting part, I think, was the construction of my facilities, which I did every stick and nail of with my very own two hands. I had zero prior construction experience, so this was a major learning process and a huge project. My garage was in such disrepair after the last owners (blackberry brambles growing through the walls :eek: ) that I started by gutting the ante-room down to the studs, including demolition and removal of a fifty-year-old workbench and cabinetry (:(). I replaced the walls, hung new doors, removed the window panes and put steel barring in all windows and doors, built perches, and laid gravel. For the weathering yard, I sunk posts in concrete, put up fencing around and overhead, built and hung a door, and planted low-growing ground cover.
After I passed my federal inspection, I later heard that the fish and game guy told another new apprentice how impressed he was with my facilities. I am more proud of that project than just about anything I’ve ever accomplished in my life.
It’s a hobby, though I feel like I should qualify the word “hobby”: my state fish and game department’s falconry page states that one must effectively dedicate their lives to the pursuit, and they’re not joking about that. It’s not a low-key hobby by any means.
Anyway, it’s a hobby for nearly all, though a lucky few are able to secure niche jobs. Some folks work in pest control–few things get rid of pigeons more effectively than a peregrine falcon hanging around–and a few at airports keeping flocks of birds out of the runways.
As an apprentice, my typical falconry-related time is currently spent doing groundwork training, so nothing that would be terribly exciting to relate. Every day I have to weigh my bird, measure out specific amounts of food, practice recalls over various distances and from various places, practice responding to a lure, and so on.
Apprentices are required to trap a juvenile passage (out of the nest but still wearing juvenile plumage. The world “passage” refers to a juvenile prior to first migration, or “passage”. Additionally, a bird taken as a passager will always be referred to as a “passage hawk” even as an adult. Yeah, it’s confusing) American Kestrel or Red-Tailed Hawk (a couple states allow Red-Shouldered Hawks, but not many) from the wild. As a general, you’re allowed a much wider range of species (master falconers are allowed a few that general falconers are not) and allowed to receive captive-bred birds or take eyasses from nests (I love parenthetical notations). There are benefits and drawbacks to flying wild-caught birds vs. captive-bred and various reasons why one might choose one over the other.
I’m in the process of training my first red-tail, a 30 oz tiercel* whom I’ve named Arion.
The people involved in falconry as a rule tend to be exceptionally codgery ;). They’re all serious individualists, and an endlessly entertaining bunch to be involved with.
Crazy stories… my sponsor at one time flew a goshawk, which is a forest accipiter. They were out one evening at dusk when she had an opportunity for one more slip (prey opportunity), and lost sight of her bird when it went to ground with the prey. It took her a bit to find the gos, but when she did, eight feet overhead there was a Great Horned Owl getting in position for an early breakfast. Eek indeed.
Several folks I know have had birds picked off by eagles right in front of them, and I was almost witness to this. I was out for a day of rabbit-hawking with one of the most accomplished eagle-hawkers in the US** when his Harris’ Hawk caught the eye of a juvenile tiercel golden who took a shot at her. He was distracted by a pissed-off red tail who was dive-bombing him, which was lucky for the Harris’.
*male, though classically “tiercel” refers only to male peregrine falcons.
**eagle-hawker refers to someone who flies an eagle, only about 30 licensed folks in the US.
Mild understatement! I had an interest in falconry a few years ago when I moved here and the people I tried to contact were NASTY. I was on a women-only falconry mailing list and had to leave it due to their behaviour.
I’ve since decided that my present lifestyle isn’t suitable so put my plans on hold. Recently I’ve met a lovely local couple who are both falconers and are always inviting me along on their hunts & also met a person who uses their bird as a fashion accessory. :rolleyes:
Kudos and please keep posting about your hobby! I, for one, would love to hear your adventures.
This, to me, is the really fascinating thing about hawking. The hawks are wild animals that you release during the hunt that can fly away forever at any time… yet they choose to return to you.
My experience with birds is with my parrots - lovely little domestically bred and hatched birds that express great affection for the family, but I could not trust them to return should they ever get loose outside. Not entirely their fault - they are unfamilar with the outside and besides the excitement of so much space to fly in, they also could easily become disoriented in the environment. People are always asking me “How do you get them to come when you call them?” Well, they want to come to me. How do I get them to want that? By… well, by making friends with them, doing good things for them (which goes way beyond just fresh food and water). My parrots do tricks and talk because they want to, they want to interact with people as well as other birds.
I can only imagine that a similar thing occurs between falconer and bird - you have to make the bird want to return to your hand, want to hunt with you, and so on. So… what do you do in order to develop that partnership with your birds, those superb predators that are, presumably, quite able to fend for themselves without your help. Of course, hawks are intelligent enough to understand the the advantages of hunting help, a secure place to sleep, food on days when the hunting is poor, etc. once they have experienced them – but first you have to convince the hawk to work with you. Clearly, this goes beyond just constructing housing to human specifications. How do you build that initial trust between you and the bird? Isn’t the newly caught hawk a wild animal, distrustful and fighting you? Is the relationship purely utilitarian, or do hawks ever show any sort of friendly/affectionate feelings toward falconers? Or is it a situation where you can’t really tell?
Also - you mentioned feeding the hawk. On days when you and the bird hunt, does the bird get all his food that way, or do you supplement it? On days when there is no hunting what do you use? Purina Hawk Chow?
What do you do to protect the hawks from featherless bipeds and vice versa? We have a falconer near us, and he not only has very secure cages for his birds, but his entire property is securely fenced. Apparently he hasn’t had too many problems - the last person foolish enough to break into a hawk cage did not fair too well. The hawk was unhurt and the trespasser transported to the hospital with significant injuries. No doubt its my experience with parrots*, which can by quite formidable even when small, but I look at the natural weaponry on a hawk and have no desire to get too close
- We had a 2 ounce lovebird break a leg. It took three adult humans 40 minutes to split her leg (two to hold, one to splint) and she still peeled the thumbnail off a vet tech and bit him to the bone. Hawks are much, much larger, stronger, and they are predators with beaks designed to shred flesh instead of seeds and leaves. The avian vet we had at the time used to work with all sorts of birds, and for the zoos they worked with that included larger raptors. Some of the safety equipment they hard for hands/arms looked almost exactly like medieval plate armor.
Oh, please - do not disparage yourself in such a manner. Yes, you still have much to learn, we understand that, but recognition that you need to consult others marks you well on the way to becoming a master yourself.
I do want to say that it is a very big deal to us to avoid disrupting or damaging the wild population, and that I will not knowingly hunt a wild bird’s territory.
Cool!
Yes, there were entire staffs devoted to caring for a king’s (or emperor’s) field of hawks. Marco Polo wrote of Kublai Khan: “takes with him full 10,000 falconers and some 500 gerfalcons, besides peregrines, sakers, and other hawks in great numbers, and goshawks able to fly at the water-fowl…” Francis I of France kept 300 falcons and 50 masters of falconry.
I don’t know how many animals they harvested at a time, but I bet, being full-time at it, they were probably pretty proficient. They took it very seriously, and akin to sumptuary laws there were extremely strict codes about what birds each class or individual was allowed to fly. In some time periods, the penalty for losing a king’s falcon was having your head lopped off. Reminding all that these are wild animals and free to follow their own whims, and also that a falcon waiting on is up around 1000-1500 feet–if they catch a rising thermal and get blown a little off-course you’re out for a long search. In the modern day we have telemetry devices to help track them down, but I can’t imagine what they did about it a thousand years ago when the penalty was losing your head.
Falconry is not an excessively efficient hunting method if all you’re out for is a full game-bag. If your main goal is to kill a lot of stuff, falconry absolutely isn’t for you. Sometimes you have great days with one strike after another, and sometimes they’re just not motivated for whatever reason. That master eagle-hawker I mentioned, we were out with his Harris’ Hawk, a fifth-year bird who generally hits jacks like a hammer. We must have kicked up half a dozen jacks and cottontails for her; she’d be right on top of each one of them and for whatever reason would pull up at the last second and let them go.
Who knows? They’re wild animals. Sometimes they just do weird things.
Thanks! 
The story of how I got involved is in one of those posts up above.
About hunting with ferrets: you’d be surprised; there are a good number of folks who hunt with ferrets, especially in the falconry community where they’re trained to flush the rabbit for the hawk. Also, there are a few of the Mediterranean sighthound breeds who’ve been hunting rabbits in conjunction with ferrets for hundreds of years.
Broomstick, have you read the book, or watched the film, by Mark Bittner titled The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill?.
If not, you should look them up. Mark also has a website.
Oh no! I’m really, really sorry to hear you were treated so badly 
. I’ve never, never been treated with anything but kindness and invitation by anyone in the falconry community. I even spent one weekend at a state falconry meet and was randomly invited to spend the night at a couple’s home whom I had met only a couple hours before, rather than me driving several hours home late at night.
Looking at your location I’m guessing you’re in the PNW–you are more than welcome to visit me any time, and I’m happy to introduce you around if you ever decide to get involved. We also encourage folks with an interest in the sport who, like you, know for whatever reason they can’t actively fly a bird, to join the Oregon Falconer’s Association, attend meets, and just generally be a friend of the community. You’re more than welcome any time.
As far as using a bird as a fashion accessory, that’s… not uncommon in the SCA world. I don’t have enough rolleyes to accurately summarize my feelings on that one.
I do keep an online hawking and business journal attached to my website. Being a commercial site I’m reluctant to link it here and incur the wrath of the mods, but you’re welcome to PM me and I’ll send you the link if you want to keep up with the story. 
Yes, I just finished reading it.
Having owned two different conures, I could really relate to a lot of what he was talking about.
Our current conure is training us as much as we’re training her. My husband was ajdusting some of her toys, she didn’t like he did and complained, he put them back the way she had tangled them up, and she started petting him, as if to say “Good boy!”
I highly reccommend the documentary, which is available at netflix.
I’m curious. How would your parrots likely react to seeing and hearing a bunch of parrots on TV? I know my cat (long dead now) would’ve been very interested.
Back to the hawks, eh, who would also be very interested in parrots. 
You’re right–he was doing just fine before I disrupted his life, and would do just fine tomorrow if I took off his bracelets and jesses, tossed him into the air, and walked away.
The taming process (called “manning” the bird) is pretty simple. In that first twenty-four hours, they’re in a total state of shock and waiting to be eaten at any second. In that state, they’ll pretty much let you do anything to them without a whole lot of objection. Mainly you just sit with them, maybe on the couch watching TV, and let them just be acclimated to human company. You touch them all over, inspect their feet, feel their keel, rub their beak and cere, feet and talons. You offer them food on the glove, though it usually takes a couple days until they’re comfortable enough to eat. They’re afraid to expose the back of their neck to you, so it takes a while until they’re willing to bend down and eat off the glove. Once they do that, 95% of the work of manning them is done. My bird ate for the first time in the evening on day 2 after trapping and was flying to the glove less than 72 hours out of the wild.
It’s all business, baby. Unlike psittacines, nearly all raptors are solitary animals that do not develop relationships with other living beings, excepting their mate. The sole exception to this is the Harris’ Hawk. I’d like to qualify that by saying a falconer’s bird will let themselves be handled by the falconer in ways they won’t let other people handle them. For example, my sponsor’s pere won’t eat off my glove. So there’s probably some level of comfort and familiarity, but nothing you’d call “affection” in the way that, say, a dog or a parrot is affectionate.
You must be very, very careful to avoid assuming that kind of relationship with these birds in order to keep your guard up and consciously handle them in a cautious and safe manner. Some birds are very capable of doing great damage to a human’s fleshy bod, and it doesn’t pay to forget it. They don’t work with you because they like you, or because you’re friends, they work with you because it’s advantageous for them to do so. People see him sitting on my glove and I have to constantly remind them that he is a wild animal, he is not a pet, and never will be a pet. Twenty years from now he will still not be a pet.
Birds of prey do not work for people for the same reasons that dogs or any other animals work for people. They respond to food rewards, and that’s it. Not compulsion, not punishment, not affection, not toys, only food.
In the active hunting season, the bird always gets all his food from the glove as rewards for working, period. He earns everything, and if he chooses not to respond, he doesn’t eat. If he’s not responding, it’s usually because he’s too well-fed and doesn’t have any motivation to participate. If he’s hungry, he’s responsive. We manipulate this tendency by keeping them at what’s called his “flying weight” or “combat weight”. Not fat and well-fed, but in good condition and always a little hungry. This is during the active flying season. During the moult, when they’re “put up” for the season, we keep them fat and happy because growing a new set of feathers is hard work and requires extra calories.
When we’re hunting, if he catches something, I’ll help kill it if it’s not dead by the time I get to him, then allow him to “break in” and eat a small amount. I’ll then show him a tidbit of food on the glove and pick him up while he eats it, pocketing the prey in the process, but not letting him see me steal his kill. They don’t remember beyond that and he’s perfectly happy to keep hunting at that point. If we continue to catch things, he’ll stop being responsive once he’s got a full crop, and at that point we head on home. If we’re unsuccessful and don’t catch anything, I’ll feed him from the glove, but at this point in his early training, he earns everything he eats.
Do you mean out in the world? Or how my mews is protected?
Out in the world, people are pretty good about keeping their distance. Occasionally you get some yahoo that thinks he’s a pet and wants to come snuggle him, but most take a good look at those talons and stay as far back as possible. 
I am extremely conscious of my surroundings when I have him out, and never allow people to get within, say, a five-foot radius, which is about as far as his wings would reach should he bate and flap around.
When I’ve got my bird out I have no greater responsibility in the universe than to protect him at all costs from accidental or intentional harm from another person, and secondarily to protect them from him.
As far as the mews goes, all entrances bolt and lock from both sides and the windows are barred with steel bars. We’ve got a huge dog and motion sensor lights. It doesn’t happen all that often that someone would break in, but usually when they do they’re folks who know what they’re doing and are there specifically to make off with the bird. If someone didn’t know what they were doing and just tried to grab him… yeah. Not a comfy outcome for the schmuck.
You know, while it hurts to be bitten, I’m not nearly as concerned about where his mouth is, as I am about what his feet are doing. Getting chomped is usually a warning shot, but getting footed can cause some serious damage.
I posted this over in the rabies thread a couple days ago:
To put their strength in perspective for folks who have no basis for comparison, I once worked with a ferruginous hawk (sometimes considered to be a small eagle, or eagle-hawk) which weigh approximately 1/4-1/3 what a golden eagle weighs. When you work with birds of prey you wear a long, heavy leather glove called a gauntlet. The gauntlet, with large birds, is really more to protect your skin from inadvertent scratches than offering any real protection from their talons, as he could, and did on occasion, put his talons through three layers of heavy kangaroo hide to your arm with just a casual squeeze.
I remember reading a book written by the first Westerner to acquire and train a Berkut (warning:dead wolf in that photo). This bird happened to be a sizable female and once put her talons into the guy’s elbow, into the joint itself, on accident. Getting whacked by a wing can break your arm.
Still, not an experience many people ever get to have.
__
Those talons are serious weapons, and they are very, very fast. I have been footed (completely my fault, and he was not intending to hurt me) and in the split second where I saw the motion of his foot, I didn’t have time to move my hand even a fraction of an inch before I was grabbed.
Most birds don’t want to hurt you and won’t if you avoid frightening them or pissing them off. If they do want to hurt you, there’s really nothing you can do about it, in which case you release the bird and find another more suited to working with people.
On the other hand, you’re working with wild animals and you just have to assume that at some point you’re going to get hurt, and possibly quite badly. My falconry sponsor (a lovely, blonde, petite, cheerleader-looking little thing) has a long scar running down and across her face and came within millimeters of losing an eye. The bird wasn’t trying to hurt her, but even in an accidental clash between talons and human skin, human skin is going to lose.