Hawks and kids

Not having any kids myself, I wasn't  that confident in dealing with them.  However, I've found, over the past couple of years, that they react so well to the hawks that it's just a question of acting as interpreter.  I explain why the hawk acts as she does and that leads us on to another question and soon we are quite happily chatting away.

Last summer was very good in the UK.  Very good weather and the economic climate seems to have improved greatly as well.  The end result was a lot more customers coming to Exmoor to play with the hawks, courtesy of North Devon Hawk Walks.   There were certainly  a lot more children.   I think word is spreading, and the hawks and I have been to several children's birthday parties.


Attached is a picture drawn by Finley, following his outing with us and his introduction to Her Ladyship.

Cassius at the Riverside Camp site

Here's Cassius coming down to land on a customer at one of the new locations for our walks, Riverside Camp site.  If you look half way along each wing, you'll see  one feather sticking up. This configuration breaks up the flow of air over that part of the wing and helps make it more stable at low speed. Ideal for landing.  It's the same idea as the " fingertips" at the end of his wings.
Thanks to  Marco Oliveira for the photograph and the kind remarks on Trip Advisor,

A new arrival.

I've recently added a Barn Owl to the flying circus that is North Devon Hawk Walks. At the moment he / she is just a ball of fluff with a beak at one end and claws at the other. Let's get some photos online.

Actually, the photo above is quite recent and shows the owl at about 6 weeks of age. The down ( or fluff) is beginning to come off and the adult plumage is beginning to show.

This was taken with a thermo-graphic camera and shows just how good the fluff is at keeping the bird warm. He/she is standing on my hand. The white bits are hot, blue are cold and the red is somewhere in between.

A new start.

Let's see if I can get this old blog site running again, with a couple of pictures of Lady Macbeth in action to begin with.

At last a new posting.

Time flies.   Never more so than when you have post something on your blog and think   "Tomorrow ".

I was horrified to see how long it's been since the last one.    Life at North Devon Hawk Walks has been busy over recent months.  The upturn in the national economy is reflected in the number of people wanting to go on hawk walks. May 2014 was the best one, in terms of number of customers, for three years.

The hawks remain their own sweet selves.  Cassius is as friendly and approachable as ever.  Lady Macbeth is as forbidding and dignified as ever.   The only real change has been with Artemis the Sparrowhawk who early in May began to get get broody.  Her usual raucous  squawk demanding food turned into a low-toned, seductive cheep as her hormones took control.   She is an imprint so there was no question of her wanting a male Sparrowhawk, it was me she fancied.    Some hurried research later and I hooked up with a guy who breeds birds and was able to give me a crash course on avian artificial insemination.   Sad to say, Artemis' hormones had kicked in a bit too late and there were no imprint male Sparrowhawks still producing semen.  She laid one, unfertilised egg.   However, we shall be prepared next year.


We are all concentrating on the moult at the moment. Lots of food, lots of sunshine to stimulate the annual dropping and regrowing of feathers.   Photos to follow.

I've started  Facebook pages  both for myself,  Nigel Penfold, and North Devon Hawk Walks. We are also on Trip Advisor and doing very well, thank you, in terms of good reviews.  37 so far, and all  5 star Excellent.             There's definitely something about birds of prey that appeals to people.
Below is a pic of Her Ladyship shouting abuse at a passing dog.

Video of hawk landing.

North Devon Hawk Walk with Cassius from Manta Daz on Vimeo.


This video was posted on the North Devon Hawk Walk Facebook page some time ago.
It's by a customer who came out with us a few months ago on a Hawk Walk on Exmoor. He got some really good footage of the hawks flying and landing on the customers. 
I'm in the process of building a new website, and there will be a few video clips to show exactly what we get up to on a Hawk Walk.

Lady Macbeth by Tansy Rollin

A couple of photos taken by Tamsin Rollins    at the North Devon Show earlier this year.

Trip Advisor etc.

Here at North Devon Hawk Walks    (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk )   The birds have nearly finished their moult and have only a few gaps in their wings where new feathers are not yet fully grown.  Every year they drop all their feathers ( not all at the same time), and new ones grow down.  There is a definite system, with the outer  feathers falling first, then those closer to the body.   If I find one feather on the floor on Monday, then I know that on Wednesday I'll find the mirror image feather from the other wing or side of the tail.  Regular as clockwork.


The Harris Hawks have done very well this season, with the customers really enjoying their flying displays. It's a shame that most people want to go out in the summer, because it's when there is a strong wind blowing that these birds are at their most spectacular.   I was training a new young hawk, Hero, that I've been loaned for a couple of years, the other day. I got him to fly towards me from a tree, then threw up a piece of meat about twenty feet into the air. The strong wind meant that it was easy for him to keep airborne and to travel at speed, so he  was regularly catching his "prey", getting lots of exercise, honing his flying skills and providing a spectacle for a couple of motorists who stopped to see what was going on.   My birds and I are a regular sight outside Withypool on Exmoor, and one year I put up a sign on the side of the road, because I was afraid of drivers cruising past looking at the hawks and not noticing that the road bent to the right. I had visions of them plowing straight off the road and down the valley.

Somebody recommended that North Devon Hawk Walks go on www.tripadvisor.co.uk   I was surprised to learn that a lot of people use TA to search for activities like my Hawk Walks. We've now got 19 reviews, all "Excellent", which means that the hawks are officially the best attraction in South Molton, Devon.

Hopefully I'll be taking the gang out hunting soon. It's nearly pheasant season, and the undergrowth is dying back so the rabbit holes will be visible. More exercise for the hawks, and free food too.‎

 

 

Look closely at the photo of Lady Macbeth above, and you'll see the photographer reflected in her eye.

Summer time = Show time.

We're going through a hot, hot summer in the UK at the moment.  Very welcome after three years of rubbish summers, but God is it hot!

The birds at North Devon Hawk Walks don't appreciate the heat. Although the three Harris Hawks are descended from birds that bred and thrived in the hot, arid climate of New Mexico, Texas etc. that doesn't mean that they feel like exerting themselves any more than humans do in the heat.

We've been out flying on Exmoor today with some customers, and at the end of the hour, the birds were panting with beaks open to lose heat.  I sprayed them with water before putting them in their aviaries to cool down.

Tomorrow we're off to the Devon Country Fayre at Filleigh.  This year the national sheep dog trials are also being held there and so a lot of people will be coming along.  Hopefully a large number will find their way to the North Devon Hawk Walks tent and get acquainted with the birds. Last time we were there, each of the three days was really busy with people queuing up to get close to the birds, ask questions, take photos etc.

I'll be posting photos of the day here in a few days time.  We will also be at the North Devon Show and the Mid Devon Show, in a few weeks time. 

Aviaries.

Just spent a merry two hours cleaning the various aviaries with a pressure washer. How I managed before getting one, God knows.  Getting an aviary clean and keeping it so are the most tedious chores in falconry, but essential.

Most of the diseases that affect hawks in captivity can be avoided by always ensuring the aviary is clean of old food and droppings, which harbour the germs that can infect the birds.  A floor of small gravel stones about three inches deep is very good, provided it is raked regularly and the bones, castings etc picked out.  It can then be sprayed with a viricidal disinfectant. Perches and ledges also need to be sprayed.


Birds being birds, their droppings, or " mutes " in falconry-speak, can be all over the place, although obviously concentrated near the perches. That's where the power washer comes in handy.

Cassius, Lady Macbeth and Orlando, the Harris Hawks have just begun their annual moult.  Artemis the sparrowhawk has not yet started.  For the first three, the moult will be a long-drawn out affair. They have to fly throughout the summer, which of course is the most popular time for customers at North Devon Hawk Walks.  This mean their diet has to be controlled to keep them at flying weight. This slows down the moulting process.  Falconers who don't fly during the summer just put the birds away and keep them fat so  as to get the process over as soon as possible. Some feed supplements so as to speed it up.

Artemis won't be flying in the summer. Her forte is scaring away starlings in the winter. So she's getting lots of food. In order to keep her tame, I'm making time to feed her on the fist and keep her aware of who I am.

The whole avian gang will be with me at the North Devon Show, the mid-Devon Show and the Filleigh Show this  year.  Come along and meet them !

At last, a new blog.

Last summer was pretty busy at North Devon Hawk Walks, (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) which is my excuse for not having any new blogs posted for months.  It's not much of an excuse, but it's the only one I have.

In spite of the recession, every year I get more customers coming to Exmoor to experience falconry. Many are there for the first time, but a significant number are returning customers which is nice.  There is something addictive about messing around with hawks.

We are also on Trip Advisor now, and although we've only got six comments, they are all in the "Excellent" category, so we must be doing something right.

The sparrowhawk, Artemis, has been earning her keep chasing away starlings from dairy farms, and as a result her tail is a mangled mess.  The tail feathers of the sparrowhawk are very long and very stiff. This is great for manouverability ( the tail is the rudder of the bird), but not for longevity.

Over the next few months, she'll be growing a new set of feathers, and by the end of the summer, will have a new tail.  I'll be posting pictures of the tail as it grows.

Last October I had a scare with Artemis as she went missing. She had been on her perch on the lawn, tethered, when a visiting dog scared her, her leather jesses snapped, and she flew off. After five days, I was connvinced that I'd never see her again.  A hawk that has escaped and reverted to the wild is called a "haggard"  ( probably origin of the word " hag"), and is lost forever to the falconer.  However, on the sixth day, she re-appeared, sat on her perch and started shouting for food.  To have survived that long, she must have killed and eaten something, which made all the more unlikely that she would come back.  After all, why should she?  But she did, much to my surprise and that of all the other falconers I know.  Such a return, especially of a sparrowhawk, is very rare.

All part of the emotional ups and downs of falconry. 

More pictures soon.

New photos of the hawks

I just dug out these photos, taken some time ago by customers at North Devon Hawk Walks.  The top one demonstrates the gyroscopic effect, which means that once the hawk " locks on" to it's prey, it's head will remain still even if the rest of it's body is performing all sorts of strange acrobatics.  This is so as to minimise the chance of losing sight of the prey, of course.
The second photo illustrates the hawk's unofficial motto  " Height is safety". So although it's good to be on the upper slope of a hill, it's better to be on top of a car at the top of the hill.  It's even better to be on top of the bike, on top of the car, on top of the hill. 
I always remind customers of what I call " The pirate and the parrot effect".  If the arm on which the bird is perching starts to droop, the hawk will walk up the arm to settle on the shoulder, or sometimes the head.    People usually only need telling once.

South Molton

Just come back from South Molton, where the hawks from North Devon Hawk Walks have been part of the Seven Saturdays in South Molton, an attempt to liven up South Molton on Saturday mornings. It certainly needs livening up, closing as it does at 2pm on a Saturday.  There is a market, there are shops, there is everything a holiday destination in Devon needs, but come 2pm on a Saturday, down slam the shutters.  Quaint is one, nice, way of describing it.  There are others.


Anyway, a nice surprise today when Sue Mustin, who had been on a hawk-walk with us a year ago, presented me with a framed photo of one of the hawks.  It shows either Lady Macbeth or Cassius skimming along the ground and is a really great action shot. It won first prize in the "Action" section of the Nuneaton and Bedworth Festival of Arts, deservedly so.  Unfortunately, as it's framed I can't post it on here.  You'll have to come out with us, to see it in real life.

While I'm sitting in South Molton, with a hawk on my fist, as part of the 7 Saturdays, a lot of people comment upon how relaxed the hawks appear.  This is a product of their having been subject to a lot of manning during their early years.  " Manning" is mentioned early on in this blog, and is basically just getting the bird used to a range of different experiences, in a safe and controlled way, during their training.  Like much training, it never really ends.   This is why Lady M can sit on the fist, watching people trying to park ( we have possibly the worst parkers in Southern England, their natural skill at bad parking is encouraged by an absence of any coherent or sustained parking enforcement),  listening to the town band, ( very good) and visiting performers ( some louder, but not so good), and observing a busy town centre going about it's Saturday routine ( until 2pm, see above).


The moult is going well, all the birds have dropped huge amounts of feathers and are growing nice, clean new ones. In the early stages, the birds look quite scruffy and every shake releases a blizzard of fluff, dust and feather. Now they are beginning to look sleek and streamlined.  It should be all over in a month or so and we will be ready start hunting.  While the feathers are growing, they are vulnerable to being broken, so we don't hunt then.

Next weekend we are at the Tiverton Balloon Festival, as part of the Petroc contingent.  Petroc is our local college in North and Mid Devon and I sometimes run courses in falconry there.  Part of the day will involve introducing the birds to balloons.  I wonder what they'll make of them.

Flying hawks

A full range of weather options over the past two weeks !   Torrential rain, which is no good for flying in, baking sunshine, which is no good for flying in and then at last, perfect weather. Sunshine, but not too hot, and a strong gusty breeze that enabled the hawks to get high with ease.  When they are a hundred feet up and circling lazily around, the customers can really see what all the fuss is about.

If hawks wore T-shirts with mottoes, their's would read   " Never waste energy" and " Height is safety".   That's why they won't fly high on a hot day,  it's just too much like hard work to get up there. It's OK once they're at a certain height because then they may hook into a thermal, a column of rising air.  But getting there is hard work, which is where the first motto comes in.

When they are high, the customers at NorthDevonHawkWalks get to see the birds constantly changing shape as they adjust their wings to take advantage of the changing wind conditions. As soon as the customer puts out their fist, with a piece of  meat on it, the hawk changes shape dramatically. The wings are pulled in, so that they form an   ' M ' shape ,  less wing surface exposed to the air means less lift and so the bird drops down from the sky and hurtles towards the fist. It never fails to get a gasp of admiration !


A few days ago we were at the Mid-Devon show, in Tiverton where as usual, the hawks were very popular, with people queuing up to stroke Artemis the sparrowhawk and admire Lady Macbeth and Cassius.  My friend Tom brought along his African eagle-owl and we ran a competition to guess her weight  raising £40  for the North Devon Animal Ambulance.  The name of the winner will be placed on the website,  www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk within the next couple of days, after I've contacted them to send them their free Hawk Walk voucher.

It's getting more and more busy as summer holidays lure people out to learn about falconry with us. We've been going out twice a day for several days now, and if the weather stays reasonable we should have another very busy August. 

As the birds are moulting ( losing their old feathers and growing new ones), I have to be very careful with their  diet, making sure they get a lot of very good quality food to promote feather growth, but balancing this with the need to get down to a flying weight for the days when we have customers.  See previous posts for information about food for hawks.

Hawks flying

One of my customers, Darren Williams, has posted a great little video of Cassius flying.


See it at http://vimeo.com/43519321

He'll be posting another one shortly of Lady Macbeth in flight.

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.

Forthcoming events

Lady Macbeth, Cassius and the rest of the crew will be at Exeter Cathedral on Saturday 28th April as part of the Stay in Devon exhibition

As usual we shall all be attending the Mid Devon Show on 28th July. Look out for the North Devon Hawk Walks tent.


Also at the North Devon Show on Wednesday 1st August.

And I shall be doing a "masterclass" on falconry with the birds on Monday 3rd September as part of the West Buckland Festival.

I've added a photo of Lady Macbeth in which the telemetry she now wears can be seen. Over the past 4 months, she's twice  been out overnight as a result of my not being able to find her after she caught a pheasant. Obviously, she's more interested in eating that, than coming back to me.  Usually, the bell she wears is enough to help locate her but I decided I couldn't take the chance any more and invested in a tail mount for her, so that I could use the telemetry I already had for Artemis the sparrowhawk.  In the picture above, you can see the transmitter which is secured to her tail by a crimped-on metal grip. It's tiny, smaller than a UK five-penny piece, and carries a thin, six inch long aerial.

I did attach it to her anklet, but she ate the aerial, or at least, tore it apart. I suppose it was getting in her way a bit. She's quite happy with the present arrangement and I think she doesn't even know it's there.

We've just come back from a hawk walk. It's a cold windy day on Exmoor and the breeze helped Cassius and her Laydyship show off their flying skills nicely.

I also took out Artemis, not to fly, but to let people get close and examine her in a way they're unlikely to be able to do anywhere else. The above close-up doesn't give an idea of her size .She  weighs  222grammes when she is at flying weight, and she measures about six inches from her head to the base of her tail, which should be about four inches long.  See previous posts to learn why it isn't.

See www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk  for details of the hawk walks.

Link to hawk photos.

Here is a link to photos taken by myself and customers on hawk walks on Exmoor.

Some are also from falconry displays in the UK, while a few are from my visit some years ago to Biak, in New Guinea. 


http://photobucket.com/HawkWalks