Patience is a virtue

Definitely time that I posted something!

Orlando, the female Harris Hawk that I wrote about in the last post, continues to occupy a lot of my time. Because she wasn't touched at all for the the first 18 months of her life, she is a lot more difficult to train than birds that are bought at three months of age and then trained, which is the norm.

We've progressed to the stage where I can touch, stroke and generally fiddle about with her without losing a finger.  This is important, because anyone who owns a bird of prey that is to be used in falconry needs to be able to check the bird for injuries, fit equipment etc.

  It's always possible to  "cast" a bird, that is getting someone to cover the bird with a towel while she is on your fist and thus immobilise her, but as you can imagine, the birds don't like this very much at all.  Because the Harris Hawk is quite intelligent, for a bird of prey, they soon learn to be way of anyone sneaking up on them with a towel. If the casting always takes place in the same room, they can become unwilling to enter that room.

But as I say, I am now trusted enough to be able to handle her most of the time. Except for her feet. Her tolerance of being touched does not yet extend to her feet.  She will allow me touch them a couple of times every two or three minutes, but no more than that. I've learned to watch for the tell-tale shift of balance as she takes the weight off one foot preparatory to striking me with it. But as with most things connected with falconry, time and patience will carry me through.

The sparrowhawk, Artemis, is taking a break now after a mid winter career of starling scaring. The winter has been generally mild down here in Devon so there are less starlings around.  She did a good job of scaring them away from the farms where we were employed. When we were outside, I would point her at a tree full of starlings and she'd head straight for it at speed.  She'd fly quite low and then pull up at the last moment into a steep climb which carried her up into the branches.  Inside the cattle sheds, she flew low and fast, chasing the starlings around, through, over and under the various obstacles until either she needed a rest, or she caught one.

The tail feathers of a sparrowhawk are very brittle.  They don't bend anything like as much as those of the Harris and are very prone to breaking. Artemis now has only a stump of a tail, a shadow of its former glory.  It doesn't reduce her speed but it does make her less manouverable. The tail feathers will be renewed, along with all her other feathers, during the coming summer in the annual moult.

During the moult, the feathers drop out, in a regular pattern, over a period of months and new ones grow out to replace them.   Because the feathers come out in a regular pattern, the bird is never "lop-sided" by having say two wing feathers missing on one side and none on the other. Over the years, I've noticed, that the  Harris feathers  drop out at two day intervals.  So if there is a wing feather on the floor of the aviary this morning, then the corresponding feather from the other wing, will be on the floor in two days time.

Falconers tend to keep their birds moulted out feathers ( the big ones, that is), so that they can be used to repair any damaged or broken feathers on the bird.  This is called "imping"  and basically involves fitting an internal splint or brace made from bamboo or plastic within the hollow spine of the feather  that is on the bird and gluing a section from a moulted feather onto the splint.  If it's done well, you can't see the join  ( as Eric Morecombe would say).

Anyone interested in flying hawks is welcome to get in touch with wwwNorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk     We fly around the North Molton/ Withypool area of Exmoor in Devon, all year round, any day of the week.  I enclose a couple of photos, both taken by customers recently.

Stroppy Harris and runaway Spar.

To be fair, my new Harris Hawk is not really stroppy, just intensely suspicious and quite aggressive. She has never been touched, flown or anything during her 18months, so it's not surprising that she is taking a long time to learn to trust me.

 I started training her as one would a new young bird. So for the first couple of weeks, I just spent increasing periods of time sitting in her aviary, reading or talking to her. When she was able to bear this without trying to fly through the wall, I progressed to taking her from her perch and holding her on my fist, still in her aviary.  Then it was a progression to taking her outside, on my fist and getting her to eat while there.   Surprisingly, this bit of the training was achieved quite quickly and she soon tore into her food while clinging to my fist. Now we watch television together ( indoors, her aviary isn't that luxurious), and go for slow cautious strolls around the garden and house.

 Over the past two or three weeks, I've started stroking her with a feather and as she gradually came to accept that, I now stroke or touch her with my finger.  This is still at the early stages, and she is only just coming to accept it. I've been pecked dozens of times and "footed"  ( grabbed by her claws) several times.  Fortunately for me, her claws are blunt as she has a concrete floor in her aviary.  Later on, I'll cover it with small gravel, and use a nail file to sharpen her claws, but that is several months away. The other day, due to my carelessness, she had three of my right hand fingers trapped in one foot while the other clung tight to the glove on my other hand, so tightly that I couldn't get my hand out.  So I was effectively handcuffed until she relaxed her grip, after twenty or twenty-five minutes.  The natural rachet mechanism within her foot means that once the grip goes on, it stays on until she makes a conscious decision to loosen it.  If her claws had not been blunt it would have been a trip to the local hospital for me, for stitches.

Once she is on the fist she is pretty calm, although she will bate  ( attempt to fly off) occasionally. However, she doesn't step up onto the fist like my other birds.  Instead, she attacks it, grabbing it with one foot with all her power as though she were trying to kill it. Then she steps up onto it.

She's quite big, and I think her flying weight will be somewhere around 2lbs 6 or 7 ounces. But that is some time off.  She's taking much longer to train than a young bird would, but as I'm in no hurry, that's not a problem.

The Spar ( Sparrowhawk) chose her time superbly and demonstrated just how the species gained a reputation for "sulking" and being difficult to train.

 A local TV journalist,  Janine Jensen  from BBC  Devon's  "Spotlight"  programme, came along to film Artemis scaring away starlings from a farm in West Devon, near Bradford. I explained what was going to happen.

 " Bird flies to tree where starlings are gathering, starlings fly off, sparrowhawk comes back to me for a morsel of food".

 Janine asked a few intelligent questions to act as an introduction to the piece of film, and then I released Artemis, who totally ignored the starlings, flew to another tree and sat there for ten minutes, totally ignoring me. 

Classic sparrowhawk behaviour, probably brought on by me flying her before she was ready to perform.  She then lead us all over the surrounding countryside for the next half-hour, with me using the telemetry to find her in various woods, hedges etc.  She eventually consented to me picking her up from a fence post about half a mile from where we had started.

Not a great film debut. Fortunately, Cassius was available to chivvy off the starlings and save the reputation of North Devon Hawk Walks.  

It does demonstrate that falconry is very much a partnership, and the bird is the senior partner.
























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Sparrowhawks and starlings.

It's been a long time since I posted here, sorry about that.  A new business venture, using the Sparrowhawk, Artemis, to chase off starlings from local dairy farms has been taking up a lot of my time.

It's proved very succesful, and we've operated on three farms so far with another three booked in for the future. Timing is everything, as I need to get there with the hawk as soon as the starling flocks turn up, so that they get the idea that there is a resident predator around the farm, and that they would be better off elsewhere. It's been mild this winter so far, so although there were a few early flocks of starlings, the huge flocks from Russian and Finland have not yet turned up.  When they do, I'll get the phone call from the farms and it will be another week of very early starts, getting to the farm at dawn so as to be ready to let loose Artemis as soon as the starlings turn up.  They tend to be quite regular and at one of the farms I've been visiting they would always turn up within five minutes of   08.10 . 

AS I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Artemis doesn't actually have to catch any starlings to have an effect. She just flies at the flock as it comes into roost in a tree and they immediately beat a retreat. If we can keep doing that, they push off completely.

 An article about our adventures so far appears in the most recent edition of Countrymans Weekly, a newspaper dealing with all sorts of country sports.

A local BBC reporter for BBC Spotllight is also interested in making a short film about the sparrowhawk versus the starlings , so Artemis may be appearing on the small screen. 

Sparrowhawks are famous for having very brittle tail feathers, which snap easily.  Artemis is no exception and her tail is a disgrace, only about half the length it should be.  It doesn't slow her down, but it does make her less manoueverable.  However, this isn't as bad as it could be, as I don't want her catching small birds, her natural prey.  ( They have enough problems in the UK as it is, given the large number of cats).

It is possible to repair a broken feather, by "imping" it.  That is, using an internal splint to fix a replacement feather to the shaft of the old, broken one.  Trouble is, you can't get sparrowhawk feathers for love nor money ( I've tried), so if I do it, I'll have to use feathers from the tail of a pigeon, which are the closest in size and shape.   That should confuse any amateur bird-watchers in the vicinity.

To add to my self-imposed workload, I've also got a new female Harris Hawk.  She was given to me and is proving a real handful as she is over a year old and has never been touched.  More anon.

Sparrowhawk pictures

Here are some photos of Artemis ( she's got a name now!) having just enjoyed  a gruesome dinner.
She's now 2 months old and looks almost fully grown-up.  An amazing change from only a few weeks ago.  She's come out with me on all the hawk-walks for the past few weeks, and although she doesn't fly, she  gets lots of experience meeting new people and seeing new sights.  When I leave her in the car, she perches on the steering wheel, much to the amusement of passers-by. Tomorrow, we're off to visit a care home in Taunton to show the residents the birds, then off to the Mid Devon Natural History Society meeting near Tiverton.

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.

Sparrowhawk pictures

Life and death.

Rather a pretentious title, but it seems appropriate.

I'm afraid the  buzzard didn't recover, his injuries were just too severe.  In spite of the glucose, anti-biotics and TLC, as well as the help and advice of my vet, he died.  It's sad, but I did the best I could.

 In the wild, something like 40% of all birds of prey die within their first year.  This can be from injury, disease or starvation and the factors can be cumulative. For instance a young bird  loses a few feathers making a bad landing in a tree. This means that it can't quite catch a prey item, which means that it gets a bit weak from lack of food. It picks up an internal parasite from somewhere ( maybe eating carrion), and gets weaker. Because it can't fly fast enough to catch food for itself, it starves or is taken by another predator. A predator has a very precarious existence, in the wild. 

By contrast, a non-predator sometimes seems to have it made. Someone once pointed out to me that   " If you're a herbivore, living somewhere like Exmoor,  the ground is a never-ending platter of food, laid out in front of you".     True enough, I suppose, but not when the ground is three feet deep in snow like it has been for the last couple of winters. 

At the moment, there's no snow, just rain.  I knew Devon was meant to be a bit damp when we moved here three years ago, but I didn't realise just how damn damp.  My car has developed a green mould on the black rubber surround of the windscreen. It's no consolation to know that the summers have been  " unseasonably wet" for the past three years, when you're developing webbed feet.


A week ago today, I picked up our latest recruit.  This is a female sparrowhawk ( in falconry terms,a "spar" , as opposed to a male sparrowhawk, which is a "musket").  She was born on 16th June, and is developing at an astonishing rate.  When I got her, she wasn't able to stand. She learned to do that over just three days and is now happily trotting around. Over the past two days, she's learned to stand on one leg, as hawks do when they are relaxed. She's also learned to scratch her head with one foot, without falling over.  
But the biggest change has been in her appearance. A week ago, she was a ball of white fluff, with a few brown feathers sticking out of one end. Now, her breast feathers have come through while her back and wing feathers seems to grow as you look at them.
This fast development is part of Nature's way of giving the birds as good a start as possible. While they're in the nest, unable to fly, they're extremely vulnerable. She seems to know this at some level and spends most of her waking time plucking at the white down to get rid of it and encourage proper feather growth.

I took her outside today for the first time, to meet some customers on a hawk-walk. The rain held off long enough for us to see some nice flying from Lady Macbeth and Cassius. Additionally, the customers were able to admire the sparrowhawk as she sat in mobile nest on the passenger seat of my car.   One of the customers, Claire, is conservation officer for the British Dragonfly Association.  What a great job!  She's also a keen photographer so hopefully, I'll be posting some of her pictures either on www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk , or on here.   In the meantime, I attach a few I've taken recently.
Next Saturday, we'll all be at the mid-Devon show, together with my friend Tom and his son Daniel ( also known as the youngest falconer in the UK).  With Daniel in his pram, and the sparrowhawk in her nest, it'll look more like a creche than a falconry stall!

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/