I started flying a Gyr X Peregrine hybrid this week and he is the most handsome falcon. Even though he is still in his immature plumage he is such a pretty dark coloured bird. He was bred last year and the only reason I took him on, as I like to do all the training myself, is because he was owned and flown by a good friend of mine whose training methods are not too different from my own. I gave him a few days to settle down, reduced his weight slightly as he was quite jumpy and overweight from not being flown for a while. After a few days when I could see that he had an appetite I put him on a creance, (a long braided line, to give the impression of freedom) and threw out a lure for him, which he totally ignored, so I had to attach food to the lure to get him re-focused and after two days of this he was ready to be flown free again.

Having birds on a creance is a nuisance as it tends to get wound up around anything at all, no matter how careful you are, and for that reason I try to dispense with it as soon as possible. It is even worse when training small birds like kestrels or merlins as even a tuft of grass can catch it and drag the eager bird to the ground which is disheartening.

The act of tying food to a lure is something I stop doing as soon as possible also as there is nothing more annoying that a bird that refuses to come to a lure unless it can actually see its dinner. Add to this the fact that when (not “if”, but “when”) the food detaches from the lure, it gives the bird the opportunity of taking off with it and going somewhere quieter to finish its meal. Then you have a hawk that might return for more food, which obviously you will have to tie to the lure even better that the first time and hope the same thing does not happen again.

I never understand why falconers do this, but they do.

Anyway enough about the lure as that is a subject that deserves a chapter if not a book to itself.

The first day I flew this hybrid falcon, I only gave him two stoops to the lure and called him in for dinner. I know he could have done a lot more but it was my first day flying him and I like to take baby steps with the training. A baby step in the right direction is better than leaps and bounds in any other. So the next day I gave him six stoops at the lure and left it at that. Today he is up to about ten and now I can start getting him fit and shaping the behaviour I want from him in the air.

I want to fly this bird to the lure only for the foreseeable future. He doesn’t fly at any great height yet and hasn’t ranged out any distance, but it’s only his third day flying free with me and these are things that can be rectified with time. So all in all I am looking forward to flying him as he should be an interesting bird to train.

Tom.