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.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
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.
Saturday, 18 August 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
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.
See it at http://vimeo.com/43519321
He'll be posting another one shortly of Lady Macbeth in flight.
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.
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.
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