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!
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Injured buzzard.
We have a new arrival at North Devon Hawk Walks. (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) A friend found an injured buzzard by the roadside and brought him to us on Saturday. He's obviously had a hard life so far. His left eye is destroyed and he was very weak and wobbly. His feathers are very dishevelled ( always a sign of a bird that is in trouble) and his flight muscles seem undeveloped. His one good eye was not big and round as one would expect in a healthy bird, but more slit-like. That's anothe obvious sign of a bird that is ill or very weak.
He is obviously quite young as he still has the speckled plumage of a juvenile. That is, one that has not yet been through the moult and grown his adult plumage. I would guess that he's been injured somehow, and because his eyesight is so impaired, he's had difficulty getting enough to eat.
My friend said that the bird had actually been hit by a motorcycle, but there's no evidence of external injury. His wings and legs appear to be working OK, but he was very, very weak and barely able to stand.
After checking him over, I left him alone in one of the carrying boxes I use for my hawks. This is a large, light-proof box. An injured or sick bird should always be kept warm, dry and undisturbed. The darker the better, so that the bird feels safe and doesn't get stressed or scared which would only add to it's problems.
So, after consultation with my vet, I began feeding him a glucose solution via a crop-tube. This is just a syringe of liquid attached to a thin, flexible tube which is passed down the throat and into the bird's crop. This is not difficult to do, but it needs great care as it is possible to get liquid into the bird's lungs which is obviously extremely dangerous.
I took him to the vet yesterday ( Monday) who checked him over and gave me some antibiotics to administer in the same way. The eye injury would almost certainly mean that he has got some sort of infection. His mutes ( that is, his droppings) had quite a lot of green in them, which is a sign of intestinal infection.
He is now much stronger and taking an interest in his surroundings. He is still refusing to eat solid, or even mashed, food, so we are keeping up the crop-tubing. He seems very tame, but this is actually a bad sign. A wild bird should be afraid of humans and if it allows itself to be picked up or handled without protest, it means that the bird is ill and/or weak.
I hope that after the course of antibiotics, he will be able to tackle solid food. Once he can do that, we'll have to decide whether he is fit enough to be released back into the wild. Buzzards are very common around here, and I suppose, realistically, that one more or less would be no great loss. But if you keep birds of prey, there is something very poignant and touching about comparing your fit, healthy, well-fed birds with something as battered and sorry-looking as an injured wild bird. There is a great desire to bring the wild creature up to the best condition you can. We'll certainly do the best we can.
I'll post some pictures soon.
Other news from North Devon Hawk Walks.
Last week, I had a couple of people on one of our Bird of Prey Ownership Courses. ( details on www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) This was Greg and his son Laurence. They'd been thinking about getting a bird of prey for some time and had done a lot of research and preparation. They met me in Barnstaple, where the Devon Wildlife group had invited me to take part in their annual show, and after meeting Lady Macbeth and Cassius decided to invest in a course.
They did very well during the five days of the course and got a load of hands-on experience which will make them more confident and better able to deal with the practicalities of handling, feeding and training a bird of prey. When there is only a couple of people to deal with, you can cover a lot of ground, and they were able to pack a lot of learning into the five days. Apart from the handling and manning, they tackled imping, coping,casting, using the creance and recovering the bird from a kill.
The only downside was that they were both considerably better than me at pool and thrashed me in our local pub where we went to celebrate the end of the week. I hadn't played for twenty years, and I was rubbish then too.
Time to feed the buzzard again.
He is obviously quite young as he still has the speckled plumage of a juvenile. That is, one that has not yet been through the moult and grown his adult plumage. I would guess that he's been injured somehow, and because his eyesight is so impaired, he's had difficulty getting enough to eat.
My friend said that the bird had actually been hit by a motorcycle, but there's no evidence of external injury. His wings and legs appear to be working OK, but he was very, very weak and barely able to stand.
After checking him over, I left him alone in one of the carrying boxes I use for my hawks. This is a large, light-proof box. An injured or sick bird should always be kept warm, dry and undisturbed. The darker the better, so that the bird feels safe and doesn't get stressed or scared which would only add to it's problems.
So, after consultation with my vet, I began feeding him a glucose solution via a crop-tube. This is just a syringe of liquid attached to a thin, flexible tube which is passed down the throat and into the bird's crop. This is not difficult to do, but it needs great care as it is possible to get liquid into the bird's lungs which is obviously extremely dangerous.
I took him to the vet yesterday ( Monday) who checked him over and gave me some antibiotics to administer in the same way. The eye injury would almost certainly mean that he has got some sort of infection. His mutes ( that is, his droppings) had quite a lot of green in them, which is a sign of intestinal infection.
He is now much stronger and taking an interest in his surroundings. He is still refusing to eat solid, or even mashed, food, so we are keeping up the crop-tubing. He seems very tame, but this is actually a bad sign. A wild bird should be afraid of humans and if it allows itself to be picked up or handled without protest, it means that the bird is ill and/or weak.
I hope that after the course of antibiotics, he will be able to tackle solid food. Once he can do that, we'll have to decide whether he is fit enough to be released back into the wild. Buzzards are very common around here, and I suppose, realistically, that one more or less would be no great loss. But if you keep birds of prey, there is something very poignant and touching about comparing your fit, healthy, well-fed birds with something as battered and sorry-looking as an injured wild bird. There is a great desire to bring the wild creature up to the best condition you can. We'll certainly do the best we can.
I'll post some pictures soon.
Other news from North Devon Hawk Walks.
Last week, I had a couple of people on one of our Bird of Prey Ownership Courses. ( details on www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk) This was Greg and his son Laurence. They'd been thinking about getting a bird of prey for some time and had done a lot of research and preparation. They met me in Barnstaple, where the Devon Wildlife group had invited me to take part in their annual show, and after meeting Lady Macbeth and Cassius decided to invest in a course.
They did very well during the five days of the course and got a load of hands-on experience which will make them more confident and better able to deal with the practicalities of handling, feeding and training a bird of prey. When there is only a couple of people to deal with, you can cover a lot of ground, and they were able to pack a lot of learning into the five days. Apart from the handling and manning, they tackled imping, coping,casting, using the creance and recovering the bird from a kill.
The only downside was that they were both considerably better than me at pool and thrashed me in our local pub where we went to celebrate the end of the week. I hadn't played for twenty years, and I was rubbish then too.
Time to feed the buzzard again.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
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 !
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 !
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Falconry history.
Just got back from giving a talk to one of our local chapters of the University of the 3rd Age, in Filleigh. People often want to learn something about the birds and the history of falconry, and I'm always happy to oblige. I enjoy the research, and it seems to be an almost inexhaustable subject. Usually, someone has been out for a hawk walk with us at North Devon Hawk Walks, (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk for details), found it interesting and arranged for me to visit their group.
Falconry itself is probably about three thousand years old. One of, if not the, oldest depiction of someone hawking is an Etruscan mosaic. The Roman weren't interested in it but most of the nations they ruled were, and there are Celtic sculptures and brooches depicting it. It probably began in the middle East and really reached its highest point in Europe during the Middle Ages. Following the Crusades a lot of Middle-Eastern influences were imported to Europe ( spices, building techniques, and ancient knowledge etc), falconry received a boost from this and from the interest of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick the second, who wrote a book about it in the 13th century.
Although it began as a way of getting meat on the table, falconry later developed into almost a craze among the nobility and rising middle classes in Europe. It became a way of showing conspicuous consumption ( you needed a lot staff, land, money and time to practice it), and competitiveness ( my falcon is bigger, braver, flies higher than yours). Along with other forms of hunting it became one of the necessary accomplishments of any gentleman. A falcon that flew high, attacked birds bigger and more dangerous than itself and was victorious, was believed to display all the attributes a brave young man should aspire to. It is no accident that many shields and coats of arms were decorated with eagles, hawks and falcons. Princes and aristocrats in medieval and Renaissance Europe were fanatical about it. For many it took up nearly all their time and most of their energy,. There were few who did not regard it as their privilege and duty and as a very serious occupation.
Laws relating to falconry give an indication of how it was viewed.
In 1320 the Grand Prince of Moscow made falconers above the law. ( That would be nice !)
Under King Henry 8th of England, it was illegal, without the express authority of the king, to fly a bird bred in England. Falconers had to import their birds from elsewhere. This law aimed to ensure a regular supply of hunting birds in the mews of the king and aristocracy.
Charles 6th of France restricted falconry to nobles.
A good falcon was not only a great favourite who went everywhere with her master ( King Harold of England had his with him when he was held captive in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings, 1066) but she was also a valuable possession, the result of long training. In England there were strict laws with heavy penalties about returning falcons to their rightful owners. A stray falcon had to be reported to the Sheriff of the county, by law. In the 15th century it was common to see in churches wax effigies of hawks with candles burning nearby and prayers being said for the return of a prized, lost falcon, or for it's recovery from sickness.
The Church authorities passed numerous laws over centuries, in England, aimed at getting the local priests to spend less time hawking and more time on their church duties. The fact that they had to keep on making these laws indicates that they were being ignored.
So, a long history. Falconry nearly died out in the UK in the 1950s, because of persecution by gamekeepers ( protecting pheasants) and the use of pesticides. Only a handful of falconers kept it going. In the 70's, people began importing the Harris Hawk ( Parabuteo Unicinctus) from America. It bred well in captivity and most people who begin hawking nowadays begin with a Harris Hawk.
Anyway, my talk went down well, the birds behaved themselves (you can't house-train a hawk), and everyone enjoyed themselves. I've got another talk tomorrow, in Tiverton. Hopefully I'll be able to use the dreaded PowerPOint to show some pictures so people can see how the different species of birds have different wing/tail shapes and how this affects their hunting techniques.
Falconry itself is probably about three thousand years old. One of, if not the, oldest depiction of someone hawking is an Etruscan mosaic. The Roman weren't interested in it but most of the nations they ruled were, and there are Celtic sculptures and brooches depicting it. It probably began in the middle East and really reached its highest point in Europe during the Middle Ages. Following the Crusades a lot of Middle-Eastern influences were imported to Europe ( spices, building techniques, and ancient knowledge etc), falconry received a boost from this and from the interest of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick the second, who wrote a book about it in the 13th century.
Although it began as a way of getting meat on the table, falconry later developed into almost a craze among the nobility and rising middle classes in Europe. It became a way of showing conspicuous consumption ( you needed a lot staff, land, money and time to practice it), and competitiveness ( my falcon is bigger, braver, flies higher than yours). Along with other forms of hunting it became one of the necessary accomplishments of any gentleman. A falcon that flew high, attacked birds bigger and more dangerous than itself and was victorious, was believed to display all the attributes a brave young man should aspire to. It is no accident that many shields and coats of arms were decorated with eagles, hawks and falcons. Princes and aristocrats in medieval and Renaissance Europe were fanatical about it. For many it took up nearly all their time and most of their energy,. There were few who did not regard it as their privilege and duty and as a very serious occupation.
Laws relating to falconry give an indication of how it was viewed.
In 1320 the Grand Prince of Moscow made falconers above the law. ( That would be nice !)
Under King Henry 8th of England, it was illegal, without the express authority of the king, to fly a bird bred in England. Falconers had to import their birds from elsewhere. This law aimed to ensure a regular supply of hunting birds in the mews of the king and aristocracy.
Charles 6th of France restricted falconry to nobles.
A good falcon was not only a great favourite who went everywhere with her master ( King Harold of England had his with him when he was held captive in Normandy prior to the Battle of Hastings, 1066) but she was also a valuable possession, the result of long training. In England there were strict laws with heavy penalties about returning falcons to their rightful owners. A stray falcon had to be reported to the Sheriff of the county, by law. In the 15th century it was common to see in churches wax effigies of hawks with candles burning nearby and prayers being said for the return of a prized, lost falcon, or for it's recovery from sickness.
The Church authorities passed numerous laws over centuries, in England, aimed at getting the local priests to spend less time hawking and more time on their church duties. The fact that they had to keep on making these laws indicates that they were being ignored.
So, a long history. Falconry nearly died out in the UK in the 1950s, because of persecution by gamekeepers ( protecting pheasants) and the use of pesticides. Only a handful of falconers kept it going. In the 70's, people began importing the Harris Hawk ( Parabuteo Unicinctus) from America. It bred well in captivity and most people who begin hawking nowadays begin with a Harris Hawk.
Anyway, my talk went down well, the birds behaved themselves (you can't house-train a hawk), and everyone enjoyed themselves. I've got another talk tomorrow, in Tiverton. Hopefully I'll be able to use the dreaded PowerPOint to show some pictures so people can see how the different species of birds have different wing/tail shapes and how this affects their hunting techniques.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Manning
Manning is the process of getting the hawk used to you and helping her learn to trust you. It never ends, although the basics can be achieved quite quickly with Harris Hawks. Over the past week, I've taken Lady M and Cassius to a charity event at the Sportsman's Inn, on Exmoor. They flew in front of a small crowd and had no problems with landing on the fists of people in the crowd ( in exchange for a small piece of meat!). A few days after that we went to the High Bullen Hotel and golf course, in Chittlehamholt, Devon, where a film crew spent twenty minutes recording the hawks flying to and from guests as part of a promotional video. Today, we were at the North Devon Wildlife Trust event in central Barnstaple. We were there all day and must have had several hundred people come up to the hawks, admire them and ask questions about them and the Hawk-Walks (www.NorthDevonHawkWalks.co.uk).
Lady M took it all in her stride because she's done lots of this sort of thing before. The Samba band didn't bother her, neither did the stilt walkers, or the crowds. Cassius got a little anxious at times, so went back into his travelling box for a rest. The boxes are dark, he felt secure in there and was able to rest undisturbed. It was a very good experience for him and as he has been exposed, in a safe and controlled way, to a lot of new experiences it will help him become more and more confident and bomb-proof. The thing is, the hawks believe that any new and unpleasant experience is the fault of the falconer. After all, it's the falconer who is making them experience it. So the whole manning process needs to be done slowly and gently. As I say, it never ends.
Lady M took it all in her stride because she's done lots of this sort of thing before. The Samba band didn't bother her, neither did the stilt walkers, or the crowds. Cassius got a little anxious at times, so went back into his travelling box for a rest. The boxes are dark, he felt secure in there and was able to rest undisturbed. It was a very good experience for him and as he has been exposed, in a safe and controlled way, to a lot of new experiences it will help him become more and more confident and bomb-proof. The thing is, the hawks believe that any new and unpleasant experience is the fault of the falconer. After all, it's the falconer who is making them experience it. So the whole manning process needs to be done slowly and gently. As I say, it never ends.
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