Tuesday 22 May 2012

Haggard hawk

Life continues, here at North Devon Hawk Walks.

I'm looking after a young male Harris Hawk for a guy who has not been able to devote as much time to falconry as he would like.  I agreed to take on Hero for a month, to do a bit of remedial training and manning. He's been trained and hunted, a bit, but because he's had not much done with him, he's in danger of turning haggard.

Haggard means, basically, going back to the wild. So with Hero it's been a case of back to basics. Started off with sitting with him in the aviary, with him tethered.  Then feeding him on the fist, then walking around with him, then creance flying, then flying free.  Sounds easy! 

Actually, it wasn't too bad at all. Because of course, he was just being reminded of everything, not like Orlando ( see previous posts) who is learning it all from scratch.

Anyway, Hero is now flying free ( at about 1lb 5ounces), and following on nicely through the trees.

The only slight problem is that although he will follow nicely, he won't go far enough ahead. He needs to learn to do this if he is to be any good at hunting.  But I've still got a few weeks left to achieve that.


Orlando continues to frustrate and intimidate in almost equal measures.  She's got a tremendous bellow of rage that she uses whenever I have the temerity to try and pick her up from a perch.  But for several weeks now she's been free-lofted ( ie flying free in her aviary), as well as learning to follow on. She just needs lots and lots of manning. I probably need to get her hunting ASAP as that will help her psychologically.   Not enough hours in the day.!  ( Or rabbits in North Devon).

My wife Jane is off to learn about using Facebook for  business today. So hopefully I can pick her brains and the next stage for North Devon Hawk Walks will be to join the Facebook empire.

Look at the website www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk  for forthcoming events ( Fairs and shows etc).  Recently we were at the Devon Wildlife Trust event in Exeter, which is where the picture below was taken. Most kids are fascinated by hawks, and Artemis the sparrowhawk is quite happy to be stroked.

We shall be at the South Molton Seven Saturdays in Summer event, every Saturday morning, starting 14th  July.    Come along and meet the hawks.