I hate rain. My birds hate rain, my kids hate rain and even my dogs hate rain. If there is a God wouldn’t you think he would have thought of a nicer way to water the Earth, or maybe Ireland is just the wrong place for me to live and practice falconry. more…

I made an awful bad mistake the other day. I put the birds out on the lawn to weather, this means to get them out of their night quarters, let them get some sun, fresh air, and to take a bath or a drink if they need it. It was a beautiful sunny day and on days like that I like to get them out early so they have all day to enjoy the weather, while obviously making sure they don’t overheat. But this is Ireland and they spend far too many days indoors waiting for the rain to stop. more…

My old Brittany died yesterday. He was over thirteen years old and had gone totally blind and deaf. Now he is gone to the great hunting ground in the sky to hunt all the rabbits and pheasants he wants - which doesn’t really make sense, because more…

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 more…

There are two types of falconers in this world; those that love Harris Hawks, and those that don’t.

If everyone loved the same things, if everyone agreed on everything and thought the same the world would be a less colourful and interesting place, so this surely can only be a good thing.

Since the first Harris Hawks were introduced into the falconry circle just a few decades ago more…

Different people have different ideas of what dog makes the perfect hunter’s companion. For some it’s the hyper-active Springer, a dog that just doesn’t let up and leaves no bush unturned. For others it’s the new world Labrador, a true gunner’s dog and a specialist retriever and if given a chance can be a good all-round hunter too. Many breeds that have been excellent hunters, finders and retrievers of game have sadly disappeared or become so rare in the field that they no more get a mention in working dog tales; Poodles come to mind, once thought to be the smartest of all working breeds, and the King Charles Spaniel, a small French breed, probably (and this is only my opinion) used in French falconry as the sparrow-hawkers companion. The reason more…

I just happened to be out exercising a falcon some weeks back, when I noticed someone watching me from a distance. After the bird had flown and was back up and feeding on the fist, the person approached and commented on how graceful the bird was, and what a pleasure it was to see him being put through his paces.  more…

I had a very enjoyable day yesterday with ten of my hawks, the kids and a couple of helpers, in an estate where the house and gardens are open to the public. Usually they get 40 to 50 people in on a Sunday but with the help of a large sign outside and a notice in the paper advertising the event we mananged to draw 450 people last week and in my estimation well over 600 yesterday. The hawks and falcons behaved impecably and neither them or the kids bit anyone. more…

When I was a beginner I knew everything. Now as I learn more about falconry I realise just how little I do know. Falconry, I read, had not changed in thousands of years. I enjoyed reading about the different aspects of falconry such as rook hawking, game hawking, flying merlins and sparrowhawks and each one I mentally ticked off as something that I would master with time. Images of a trained sparrowhawk bursting through a flock of feeding pigeons, or a ringing flight with falcon and prey disappearing into the clouds kept me awake many a night. So that was my plan, get all the equipment, a good food supply, not forgetting the bird and the rest will fall into place. more…

Sparrowhawk

The black cloud is darker today. It’s August and the sun is shining but I can feel the weight of a cloud hanging over me as I take her up in my hands. I know she is gone as I hold her weakened body, her feathers perfect and her eyes once so bright and menacing are fading fast as she looks at me.
I have kept birds all my life, birds of all kinds, from Appenzellars to Zebra finches, but exactly ten years and ten weeks ago I climbed a spruce tree to select a young sparrowhawk, a couple of ounces of fluff and talons that was to give me more pleasure, pain, fun and adventure than all the other birds put together, and here she was dying in my hands. I gave her a broad base anti-biotic knowing it was already too late, as some part of her body was giving up and it could reasonably be put down to old age. I placed her back on her nest ledge already knowing the outcome. I looked in a little while later and she was dead, the musket sitting beside her, doing his high speed laps around the aviary as I went in and lifted her body again. more…