A FALCONRY THREAD!!!

[TheBantyCoop]

Hello all,

I wanted to start a thread on falconry and I hope that it becomes popular! There is nothing in particular I would like posted here as long as it relates to falconry/birds of prey in a POSITIVE way. Have fun and post away!

Just to kick this thread off these are pictures of my favorites animals (both birds of prey


For those who don't know this is a Philippine Eagle! Really cool birds, endangered too
I would recommend checking out their Arkive page to learn more about them!

http://www.arkive.org/philippine-eagle/pithecophaga-jefferyi/video-00.html



This one is a Great Horned Owl! Awe-some birds!!



Thanks for viewing this thread,
El

- I don't claim credit for these images BTW! Just stuff I found around the web.....


Edited by Staff

 

[ExBattChicks]

Thank you TheBantyCoop for sharing those beautiful pictures, birds and links with us.

That Eagle is GORGEOUS!! Of course it is endangered...it is too beautiful and too dangerous and man just can't leave things be. I hope that it's numbers will increase and that it will soon be off the endangered list.

Like you and Free Feather, I have wondered about falconry and how the birds 'feel' about it. Thank you also for enlightening us on it.

Where I live - in the middle of a nature reserve, we have hawks that have a nest not far from us and each day they fly overhead...parents with a 'teenager' I'm guessing. I love to watch them and hear them up there. Actually, I would love to BE up there WITH THEM floating on a warm air current and watching all that goes on below!! I sometimes worry about my cats, but I think they are pretty aware of the hawks and stay close to the treeline...I hope!! The chicken coop is covered.

Owls, we have those, too...all kinds and I so enjoy hearing them at night when there isn't another sound..just the owls.

Nature is fabulous and I wish more people would respect it rather than trying to control it and conform it to their own (very little and very unimportant) lives. We are but tiny dots on this big earth, but man, we can cause and have caused so much damage and destruction. People really need to wake up and get over themselves before we have pushed into extinction all the beauty of this world.

 

[TheBantyCoop]

A cool discovery on the internet! I am absolutely in awe!!

These are leucistic red-tailed hawks! I have always loved red-taileds, but these are just beyond compare! Leucistic animals are like albino animals in that they lack certain pigment. In leucistic animals the eyes stay the normal color instead of red, typically! Just a cool discovery I wanted to share!!

-El

 

[HeritageGoose13]

What is falconry?
I really love birds of prey, but I like seeing them free. I am not comfortable with people confining or training them.

That is the entire purpose of falconry, at least American falconry. I don't like how they do it in certain European countries with captive breeding and all that.

In America you must train to become a falconer. There are certain species you can take. What you do is you set a trap for a juvenile bird. 90% of juvenile birds of prey do not survive to mate. So you catch one of these birds and bring it home. The raptor and human hunt together. This gives the hawk protection and more hunting training. Then after a certain period of time the human releases the hawk, but it should be known, the hawk is free to leave at any point in time after the initial training.

Here is a great video showing the process:

There is one point in the video, around 7 minutes, the hawk realizes he is free to leave, but returns to the man. Falconers don't force the hawk to work for them, they are both equal and choose to work together on hunts.

Falconry is an important part of raptor conservation.

 

[sourland]

The leucistic hawk is unusual indeed. For the first 15 or so years that we lived at our home a 50% white female redtail would winter in this area. She would spend a large part of each day in an ash tree across the road. Then several years ago a melanistic redtail wintered in the same area.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Falconry, along with other forms of hunting, is one of the most ancient sports known to mankind. It has been around since at least 2000 BC, perhaps earlier. It is found all over planet Earth.





edited to add: when you click on this last picture you get a long paragraph, I did not write it and am not sure how it got there! It must have been in the pictures files.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Here is a great song about falconry with many pictures:

 

[slingshotandLAR]

Very cool thread....

I have a similar experience with that book! I read it when I was a kid, I than read it again and again lol it has a sequel called hatchet if I remember correctly. I have always been intrigued and facinated with falconry. This winter one wound up in one of my traps and I had the pleasure of seeing it up close, it was a young red tail just like in the video. With out a doubt one of the coolest animals I have ever seen up close. The eyes on those birds are amazing. I released it with out issue and it's wasn't hurt at all. After I let it go it just hung out awhile with me that was also pretty cool.

I would love to train a bird someday, I think the logistics would be difficult in the winter though.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

More pictures:

 

[Allears]

http://www.urbanraptorproject.com/bird_control.html

Our soccer stadium in Port Elizabeth is completely poison free. We use raptors and bats to control the number of feral pigeons, rodents and insects that occur in and around the stadium.