Lady Macbeth by Tansy Rollin

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

Out and about with the hawks.

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.

Mantling.

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

Shakespeare.

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 !

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/