Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin on this one.

I suppose it started back in February with a guy who I did not even know, clicking the “enter” button after placing an advert on the web.

But then again maybe it had started months before when I dropped food into my pair of Lanner Falcons in a seclusion aviary and only one of them made an appearance that day and came down and showed interest in the food. Seclusion aviaries are used for a pair of falcons or hawks to breed in. Leave them alone with peace and quiet hawks and these birds should, in theory, breed away to their hearts content. With a half open roof so they can watch and enjoy the season’s change, a covered area so they can enjoy their nest ledge away from the wind and rain, and a peep-hole so a human like me can keep a close eye if things went wrong.

But no matter how close an eye one can keep on birds, if one decides to pop its clogs and die of old age there is very little that can be done about it. And die he did, at the ripe old age of twenty three.

The advert read something like this; “Male Lanner Falcon for sale, three years old, would make good breeding prospect.”

Ok fair enough, sounds just like what I am looking for, so I click on it and open up the advert to get the man’s number and low and behold if he isn’t selling a few birds. I rub my hands together as I reach for the phone.

“Sorry, but the Lanner is already sold.”

I listen as I see the breeding prospects plummet for another year.

“What are the other birds you have for sale?” I ask casually. My heart had already left my head to finish the conversation.

“Well we have a male Ferruginous hawk,” he says. “Light phase” (meaning white-bellied and beautiful. The Latin name is Buteo Regalis, or the regal buzzard)

I have flown a female one of these many years back and did not enjoy the experience, as at the time I was hunting for the pot and if enough seconds had elapsed between her catching her rabbit and me swapping it for a different reward the rabbit in question had not only been killed, but also gutted, skinned and devoured! I wasn’t particularly interested in a ferocious Ferruginous Hawk.

“We also have an African-Spotted Eagle-Owl, a Tawny Owl and breeding pair of Barn Owls.”

I am not really an owl type person. I like the fluffy little chaps, can admire the way they fly silently and gracefully through the darkness to capture their little rodent dinners. But really, if a grown man wants to put flesh on his plate, it’s a proper bird he needs; a hawk or falcon, the birds of noble kings and emperors, a bird that just oozes elegance and respect.

“By the way I also am changing some things in my falconry centre and have a Turkey Vulture available.”

I take back what I just said about noble falcons and suchlike, because truth be told, I just love ugly Vultures!

There was a deal was struck there and then over the phone and all that was left for me was to break the news to my better half that I was spending money on some more birds. The owls were not a problem as she just loves the soft-feathered cuddly little guys; once she got overt he facts that they were once renowned as evil, a herald of forthcoming doom and the cute way they can swallow a rodent whole without even licking their lips.

One more obstacle in the way was the fact that he was in Yorkshire in the UK and I was in Ireland which put one sea and a few hundred miles between us.

So I phoned her to break the news………….

And before I could swing the conversation around to the subject of spending hard earned monies on more predators, she said, “It’s Valentines Day in a few days,” and then asked, “Are you taking me away for a holiday or buying me a lovely present?”

“Oh, eh, yes dear, both” I stumbled. “I will take you away for a little break, and buy you a beautiful present. I hope you like it,” I said, letting her know what an absolutely fabulous man she had found in me!

Ok, now it was time to become fabulous.

I Googled Mr. Romance and came up with the man who had gotten me into trouble in the first place; Saint Valentine.

I then typed “Wikipedia” and pressed “Enter.”

Wikipedia…….

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Numemberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius 11, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner — until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor — whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; but when that didn’t finish him off, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate.

No mention of flowers or chocolates there then!

So I sent her a text and explained the situation. Within a minute my phone rang.

“You are buying me a what?”

A week later we boarded the ferry across the Irish Sea on a beautiful clear morning.

I am not that well travelled in the UK so I had taken a loan of a Satellite Navigation system from a friend who assured me that there would not be a problem with it.

Having not used one before, I happily switched it on as we un-boarded the ferry on the other side.

I am not usually an easily frightened or intimidated person but when the voice of Christopher Lee cut through the morning sunshine, it sent a cold tingle up my spine.

The Sat Nav, voice was set to “Vampire” and from the moment we touched the tarmac in Wales this blood-sucking navigational parasite done his utmost to destroy any chance of us reaching our destination unharmed.

“Let me consult my magic book.” he said in his slow and eerie voice

I have been to Wales a few times and I knew that the quickest was to Yorkshire was to stay on the motorways across England, not to take every side road and laneway that led to a dead-end with no way out.

It quickly became apparent that this Vampire was using modern technology to kill us.

I ignored each turn the Vampire wished me to take and stayed on the motorway.

He didn’t like it…….

“Let me consult my magic book.” He said, sounding a little bit more pissed off with every mile travelled. And we had a lot of miles to go yet.

He settled down as the morning wore on, at one stage he even stopped consulting his magic book and told us, “You are brave people indeed to travel alone in these parts!”

But we ignored him again for a while and just as things were getting along fine and dandy he shouts;

“Take the next exit or die”

He said it in such a blood-curdling way; he left no doubt about it, to take the next exit or else. When he gave me that order, I am sorry but I obeyed.

That carnivorous blood-sucker brought us through every town and village on the way to our destination, and every time I asked for assistance to get back on the right track he said, very slowly: “Let me consult my magic book.” And consult it he did. But by then we were on yet another wrong road and cursing him and any un-dead family he might have.

Anyway, seven hours later we eventually reached a sign that said Yorkshire and let us know that in distance, if nothing else, we were nearing our destination. We were cold, tired and physically exhausted from driving across the Yorkshire moors in pitch darkness, having been repeatedly stopped by closed roads, not re-directed as we would have been in Ireland but just stopped by ROAD CLOSED signs everywhere with no directional help, just the blackest night all around us.

After driving for nine hours on what should have been a four hour trip, and haven driven through every town and village between Holyhead and Yorkshire in rush hour traffic and being so desperate that we knew that soon we would be killed and eaten by whatever creatures prowled the Dales after darkness, we again asked The Vampire for help.

“Let me consult my magic book,” he said, obviously pretending that it wasn’t him that got us into this mess in the first place.

“In 300 metres, take the next right,” followed by an evil laugh, and the words; “If you dare!”

We took the right turn and were duly met with a sign that read ROAD CLOSED which looked exactly like a ROAD CLOSED sign that we had read an hour before on a piece of road that looked exactly like this one.

With tempers fraying and an air of dislike towards all modern gadgets, I somehow managed to stop her from throwing the Vampire Sat Nav. out the window. By this stage she was pulling out her hair and was prising the sucky thing off the windscreen and screaming, “If you consult that magic book one more time…” As she balled up the connecting cables to make it more aero-dynamic to throw through the night air, I just about managed to save it. Luckily so, as it wasn’t even mine.

It was an interesting trip if nothing else. We eventually found somewhere to stay. We were not murdered in the middle of the night which is always a blessing. We even got up early to a beautiful sunny morning, far removed from the night before.

Later we travelled to meet with Stuart that had placed the advert and spent an enjoyable morning in his falconry centre, loaded up the birds and headed back down across England and Wales without mishap. The Vampire seemed to have softened during the night. We didn’t really become friends with him or start to trust him completely, but we did manage to come down across England and back through Wales without mishap.

After a late crossing on the ferry back to Ireland we were both tired, and as it was me that was driving I envied her as she nodded off to sleep.

Now I have to admit that I knew the road like the back of my hand so maybe it was out of mischief that I plugged in the Sat Nav. one last time.

As the voice once more cut through the night with those immortal words… “Let me consult my magic book….” She suddenly came awake and screamed. “NO!!!”

Anyway, the Vulture and the other birds are well established in our centre now, all having survived the journey. But now and again as we speak to people in the centre and she explains about how we acquired the vulture, I sometimes hear a raised voice saying those words that will haunt me for ever;

“He bought you a what, for Valentines!”

Tom.

Not so long ago, well a few millions years ago, there was a bird that was the absolute master of its world.

Today we consider the eagle to be the ultimate predator and top of the food chain, and rightly so, as there is no other bird or beast that can master it or regularly use it for food.

But between two and sixty million years ago, just before modern man walked upon the earth there was a bird so ferocious it struck fear into most living creatures.

Our ancestors were still hairy apes that walked along the edge of the forests and struck out across the grasslands in search of food. But if you were a hairy ape in South America you had better keep an eye out for a certain bird, as bird-watching in those days would have been a matter of life or death!

There was a whole family of Terror Birds, but the largest, Titanis Waleri, was huge, it stood nearly ten feet tall and weighed in at 330lbs, nearly 24 stone; twice the weight of a normal man. Its beak was enormous and sharp; strong and heavy enough to rip the head off its prey, which don’t forget were our ancestors.

This bird did not fly. It grew so big that they didn’t need to. They were built very much like the ostrich we know today, but had a ferocious beak that can only be described as somewhere between a giant chisel and a sledge hammer.

Scientists are great; they know loads of stuff. They know for sure that North America and South America were once two different continents and eventually crashed together 3.5 million years ago (if you can call colliding at 2cm a year crashing) to form what we know now; the two big bits of America joined together by that skinny bit in the middle.

Terror Birds crossed over this skinny bit long before they joined up. Scientists know this for a fact because they analysed the distribution of a group of chemicals, known as rare earth elements, within the bones, and they were able determine the age of the North American remains. Then they argue about how such a big flightless bird could cross those oceans; did it hop from island to island or did it float on some raft, just like iguanas and other creatures are known to have done?

It was the age of huge mammals. The dinosaurs had come and gone and mammals quickly filled the gap. There were giant sloths bigger than any modern bear. There were elephants nearly three times the size of the elephants we know today, with downward pointing tusks designed to strip bark of trees. There were giant sabre-toothed cats that would make a Bengal tiger look like a pussy. But most predators at the time were normal dog-like creatures that hunted the normal size herbivores, and these were fair game for the Terror-birds, with the odd hairy ape thrown in vary their diet.

Hairy apes (scientists don’t refer to them as humans yet) were leaving the forests and walking upright across the grasslands in search of food. Standing upright had many advantages; you could look over the high grasses in search of prey and hopefully see and evade whatever was trying to eat you. Standing up on your back legs also left your front limbs free to carry tools and weapons, like sticks and stones, which were becoming more and more a part of ape life. These open grasslands had food aplenty for our ape-like ancestors; seeds, roots and an endless supply of meat from grazing animals. But this was the hunting ground of the Terror-birds and no ape stood a chance against this giant ferocious bird which could run at 50mph.  Just one peck could split your head wide open.

So next time you are sitting down to a chicken dinner, spare a thought for the Terror-bird, a cousin of your dinner that could have eaten you.

Tommy Byrne. June 2009

Alice - sparrowhawk

As I am writing this I am also looking out the window at Alice in her aviary, sitting as usual next to her mate in an open fronted pen, surveying as only a queen can, over what she knows to be her territory. She is nine years old this year, and looks out over the scratching chickens and watches the children and dogs play with disinterest. Further along the row of aviaries are other hawks and falcons I have hunted with over the same distant hills and fields, but none of them can claim to own the view as she can.

Alice was taken under licence as a white downy, probably seven or eight days old, from a small mixed conifer wood not far from where I live. In my wisdom her imprinting and training programme was planned out in advance and left no room for failure or mistake. So, after making a complete botch job in trying to imprint my first hawk I was left with a noisy, screaming, and vicious she-devil.

‘Well done Tom, you messed up yet again!’

Her initial training was smooth enough despite her incessant calling to me to produce more food for her. So, I had on my hands a noisy but obedient hawk that came when I called, but after my first few fruitless excursions to the fields I knew I was doing something else wrong. I was a bit nervous to drop her weight any, as she was obedient enough and definitely evil enough towards me. After a couple more days of noisy, fruitless, perfect obedience, I decided something had to be done, if only to prove to myself that she was not some vegetarian double agent that had somehow managed to infiltrate my hunting lifestyle. So I dropped her weight very slightly. I know now how Dr. Frankenstein felt when that bolt of lightning brought life to his corpse; I had just created a monster!
From then on we never looked back, I got a better understanding of weight control and condition, and she literally never looked back towards me but focused on what the dog and I could flush for her to catch. That first summer she thought me just how quickly a sparrowhawk can react. As we walked through fields trying to find small quarry to fly at, butterflies would make my already thumping heart skip yet another beat in anticipation of a flight. On my upheld fist Alice wouldn’t have even flinched a muscle, if she could have thrown her eyes to heaven, believe me she would have. But if a bird got up she was gone. Before I could even make out whether it was a bird or yet another butterfly the dog had disturbed, the chase was already on, so I quickly learned not to hold her jesses and leave the decision making up to the one with the brains in our little outfit.
Our team of three set out to the fields most days. Alice, the beautiful and capable killer, my Brittany, loving every second of finding, pointing and finally flushing stuff for her, and last, and by all means least, me. If I had any grand illusions about being in control, these two quickly burst my bubble, I soon realised I was only the transport and acting high-perch while the important ones got on with the job in hand.
It soon became apparent that pheasants exited her more than nearly any other quarry and in the early days we spent a lot of time in pursuit of them. Speed was not lacking on her part but pheasants are usually far too large for such a small bird to take down on the initial flush. But with the dog only too happy to find the bird again if he could, usually somewhere not too far from where Alice was taking stand, the second or third flush if we could get one usually saw results. Alice has caught quite a few pheasants in her day and the feeling of returning home with a big plump pheasant caught after a long hunt with a 9oz. spar will stay with me forever.

In Alice’s first year I flew her without telemetry and somehow managed not to permanently lose her, but after too many scares and being lucky enough to get her back each time, I vowed never again to take the chance. Many is the time I needed it, sometimes things just happened so fast I wouldn’t have a clue which way she went, and sometimes because she had killed and frozen on her kill as spars do, and there also was a very serious chance of stepping on her in heavy cover. The first day she wore a transmitter on her leg was at a field meet and I remember having concerns that it would get in her way. I needn’t have worried because as usual she didn’t let me down; in front of a crowd of onlookers she caught a swallow on the wing after a memorable chase around a large barn, hopped up to the fist for food and obviously accidentally on her part, released the swallow unharmed, perfect!

Just as a wild sparrowhawk would, Alice has caught quite a range of prey over the years, from her natural quarry of small birds like sparrows to woodpigeons and feral pigeons. At one time I regularly used her to clear feral pigeons from sheep-sheds and barns where they were causing a nuisance. She has caught a few black-headed gulls and in another memorable slip she chose to take a herring gull from a mixed flock of feeding gulls and crows. When I got there it was fair to say they had an equal grip on each other and neither of them were going anywhere in a hurry. I think she only chose this bird, which was easily six times her size, because it was slower in escaping than the others, but it does go to show what spars are made of.

When she was just a couple of months old she entered herself on rooks, after losing her for a while and finding her feeding up on a rook she had caught. So it seems she was a rook hawk, in every sense, and I took to driving around the country roads to maximise my chances of successful slips. The majority of crows were taken before they got a chance to get too far, but now and again the crows would be up and away. Anyone that came out to see my little she-devil, flying in underneath a rook, to take her precious head hold and pull it out of the sky had to agree it was spectacular. Over the years she has taken many, many crows, not just rooks but hooded crow, a carrion crow, jackdaws, and without a doubt her favourite of them all, magpies. It was actually a magpie that cut a tendon on one of her outer toes causing her from then on to keep it permanently folded up. This caused an infection, which took me some time to clear up, but luckily it never noticeably hampered her catching ability. Catching rooks twice her weight on a daily basis took its toll on her plumage, especially her tail and the only supply I had readily to hand to imp with, that was near the right size were rooks tails, as you can imagine there was an endless supply. Wearing a black tail made her one strange raggedy-looking hawk and on more than one occasion people asked was she in disguise to infiltrate enemy lines! But as each season passed thankfully she broke less and less tail feathers.

I fully believe why Alice was in the mind-frame to continually catch large quarry is because from her point of view, and being a full imprint, she was acting as part of a team. She knew that help was never too far behind; that if she just held on for a few moments until I arrived she would have her just reward. Sometimes I would leave her on her kill and would lift her into the car and let her feed up back in her aviary as a special treat.
Most of her flights were after corvids and I usually limited such large quarry to one kill a day, but now and again when I knew she was on form we would take a chance and push things a bit, one particular day stays in my memory. We had just left the house when Alice slipped out the car window and caught a hen pheasant, this was one of the local pheasants so I quickly took it off her unharmed and put in the hawk box to release again later. It was one of those days when everything just seems to go well and she caught a magpie and two rooks in quick succession without too much hardship involved. After such success we were soon homeward bound and that was when a full-grown cock pheasant showed up on the scene. The pheasant was on the road looking for a gap in the hedge to nip through when she hit him, but with such a size difference she couldn’t hold him down and was quickly shook off. The pheasant changed his tactics and tried for a vertical take off to escape, but in a split second she was after him, and as he tried to climb over the high hedge she bound to him again and pulled him back down to the ground. A major struggle took place in the middle of the road and I got there as fast as I could to help her. I sat there with her as she fed up and beamed with pride at my little she-devil. This cock pheasant later weighed in at 2lb, 7oz, so including the hen pheasant, the two rooks and the magpie, she had caught approximately thirteen times her own weight, all in less than an hour!

It sometimes happened that I would run in to assist, only to see she had the situation so much under control that she would drag the struggling rook by the head with one foot, (she only ever caught rooks with a head-hold or not at all) while trying to draw blood from me with the other. She does love me really.
Once she gave a raven a slap, mistaking it for a rook in the long grass, I don’t know who got the bigger fright, the raven or myself, but she knows more about crows than I do and was wise enough not to get stuck in and came straight back. Another day she ended up battling it out and had to be forcefully removed from a full-grown Rhode Island Red that was minding her own business, I don’t think that chicken laid an egg or even came out of the coop for a week, even then only after checking that the skies were clear of avian attackers.

Most falconers have come to falconry through an interest in wildlife, a fascination with seeing flights that the average bird-watcher could go forever without seeing. Alice gave me some of those insights. Slipped after a starling, thinking she might have a good chance catching it in a straight flight, only to see her dip low under a gate, angle herself at full speed through sheep-wire and take a parallel route, having mentally calculated her distance, and flipping back over the ditch exactly were the unsuspecting starling is still feeding. Seeing this type of flight unfold close at hand really is the ultimate in bird watching.

Alice spends her summers moulting out in her aviary and in her third year she started acting peculiar, for some reason around that time we owned a cat, so maybe I can be accused of the same fault. Anyway, this cat, which just happened to be christened Dopey for reasons of his own, spent a lot of time that summer sunning himself and lazily poking his foot into Alice’s pen, and to my amazement she responded likewise, playfully trying to foot him. I left the two of them at it, as there was no harm being done, until I noticed that her tail coverts were huge and she was showing strange behaviour towards this stupid cat, and it finally came to me that she was coming into breeding condition. I quickly built her a shelf and brought in soft conifer sticks and twigs, which she helped me form into something resembling a nest. That year and every following summer she laid eggs and stood happily for artificial insemination if only I had the natural (or unnatural, depending on the reader’s view) substance to inseminate her with. Without delving too deeply into my inadequacies and to cut a long story short, for years we had no success, and all we were left with were the basic ingredients of an omelette. One year she tried her best to rear a sick Harris Hawk chick, which through no fault of Alice’s refused to survive, but it pushed me to provide her with a more stable and permanent relationship, (I know folks, reading “Mills and Boon” has a lot to answer for!).
Last year she produced fertile eggs for the first time, now that she is living with a male of her own species. Not having seen any signs of copulation and through every fault of my own, mostly through just not being prepared, I only managed to hatch one of the two fertile eggs, and rear one chick to four days old before it died. This year however might prove more successful, and who knows, maybe one of these days I will venture forth to the field with an offspring of Alice’s and start a story all over again.

Irish falconers are lucky. We might not have the proper open plains to fly gyrfalcons and eagles, not too many perfect places to fly our own peregrines at crows or game. Rabbits, hares and game birds might be too scarce in too many regions to make hawking with larger birds worthwhile. But the one thing we do have is one of the best and most versatile hawks in the world. A sparrowhawk can be flown successfully in every part of every county of Ireland, every ditch and hedge holds its natural food and what better way to fly a hawk than in its own environment which is, let’s face it, every nook and cranny of the country.

Older and wiser men than me say that each man is allotted one good woman and one good dog in his lifetime, I have had my dog, and my wife tells me not to think too much about the other. But as I look across to her aviary and see Alice contently surveying all that moves within her territory, I wonder if the same applies to hawks. If it does I can honestly say I will be doing well to ever have another hawk that could bring to me as much pleasure, knowledge and good flights as Alice has.

Tommy Byrne 2005

The birds flying weight for example I thought was carved in stone, the perfect weight for each particular bird was discovered during the training programme and that was the weight that bird would fly at for the rest of its natural life. I quickly learned that this was untrue and more effort was spent chasing the hawk’s perfect hunting weight than in the actual pursuit of prey!

So why does the perfect weight for your bird change from day to day?
Here are some of the reasons, feel free to add to it!

1. Food quality…did she have a feed of duck or washed rabbit yesterday?
2. Food quantity…this one is obvious, I think!
3. Feeding time…did you fly her and feed her at same time yesterday, or can you remember?
   Temperature…has rigor mortis set in after a night of freezing fog?
4. Weather conditions…maybe you should follow the bird back to the car and out of the rain!
5. Changing seasons…is your bird looking for nesting material instead of rabbits?
   Strange people… who invited that fellow in the shiny tracksuit?
6. Distance from home…are you flying in unfamiliar countryside? The average pigeon knows when it is miles from home, why not the falcon?
7. Air pressure…this gives me a headache just thinking about it!

Every falconry book worth the paper it’s written on will tell you that it is wrong to fly your bird too low. She will be lacking in strength; instead of hunting she will be turning to you to supply food and basically won’t be enjoying herself. But it is equally important that she is not flown too high. If she is, she could turn away from you, break up the partnership and go self-hunting or worse, sit there and yawn every time you call her. (I think I will have to drop my woman’s weight a little!)
So basically you want to fly your bird quite high, but low enough that she will still perform the task in hand.

Weight control is the most useful tool in training your hawk, this may sound like an obvious statement but it is surprising how often you see it ignored.

When a bird arrives from a breeder, obviously fat as a Christmas turkey and just as much a handful, one of the first things we do is stand her up on the fist and admire her, (that’s me, guilty as sin!) Every feather in place and her eyes as wild as fire. With one movement of your hand she is gone, bating off the glove with enough energy to take her over the horizon. We take for granted she is as wild as a wildcat and does not want to be there. The reason she does not want to be near us is because we don’t have anything she wants at that exact moment. But with a little bit of forethought and a little bit of weight reduction in the aviary before she is even handled, the time spent waiting for her to feed on the fist and start looking to you as a friend instead of foe can be dramatically reduced. Imagine it from the bird’s point of view and I think we can’t go far wrong.
I have seen a falconer stand waiting with outstretched glove, garnished with the loveliest piece of fresh raw beef. While I was licking my lips and getting hungrier and hungrier the hawk on the creance was getting bored, sitting with one foot raised and not remotely interested. This bird should have been put back on the lawn to weather while the falconer took the beef to a frying pan. Instead, through the best efforts of the falconer the bird was being taught to ignore the person’s call. Food is meant as a reward and it can only be a reward if the bird actually has an appetite.
Food can be used to overcome most bad habits, especially those little niggly ones that just get on your nerves. I had a Harris hawk that bated every time I passed through the gateway to the weathering lawn, this used to really annoy me. Why did he bate? I supposed he loved to go out on the lawn for his bath or maybe he got a fright once and just bated out of habit. Whatever the reason, something had to be done. I took an ounce off his weight, because the lower his weight the more important the food would be, and gave him a small piece every time just before we passed through the gate. After a few times I changed it so he got his food after he passed through without bating. The food took his mind off bating and after about twenty times it seemed to cure a problem that had been annoying me for months.
The same goes for birds that bate just when you are going to pick them up or put them down, or birds that don’t look forward to the approach of the hood. Use food to take their mind off it and then reward only when they do it properly.

Routine. I think this is the most important falconry term you will learn. In the wild raptors hunt to a routine, peregrines leave the cliffs to hunt usually at first light, and we have all seen sparrowhawks hunting just before dark, like a handbag snatcher surprising her prey. We can use routines to help us train our birds. Don’t try teach your hawk in the morning one day when she is not really hungry and then the next night when she is ravenous, then maybe skip a day or two and do the same again. It would be better to train her every day at the same time, she will be looking forward to it and have in her mind what she learned yesterday. If you stick to the same pattern during training and then actual hunting, you will notice the hawk getting more eager before the task or flight, which means that you can increase her weight quite considerably. One particular falcon comes to mind, a hybrid prairie falcon given to a falconer because she was messed around, and totally refused to co-operate until her weight dropped to 1lb 15 oz. After flying this bird every day in the same area for a few months he was able to raise the birds weight until the last I heard she was doing well catching crows at 2lb 5oz.
But be careful when your bird reaches that top weigh and something unusual happens, like that fellow in the shiny tracksuit shows up all of a sudden. Not a problem if you have been wearing one during training but if it upsets your bird - and birds are more easily upset at a high weight, you could have a problem. One falconer training a peregrine tiercel to the kite with never a problem saw his bird range away as usual one day only never to return to the lure attached to his kite. After an hour of tracking he finally found him impatiently circling and dive bombing a hand-glider!

At field meets you will see the best-manned hawks acting up, (that’s me guilty again!) maybe slow to return or worse taking stand in a tree. “She was alright yesterday at that weight, I wonder what’s got into her today?” Maybe yesterday she was flown in her usual pattern of one man and his dog in the usual landscape, today in the field she has to contend with twenty noisy people, strange dogs, and to cap it all, children! By having your hawk slightly lower (and I don’t mean ravenous) on days when you know it might be upset, the extra urge to hunt will usually override the other factors.

So what is the best way to control weight? After mentioning all the variables that can affect it, I suppose I had better look at ways of holding it where you want it. The weather and the seasons, and why people wear shiny tracksuits are things mortal man has no control over. But the three things we have at our disposal are food quantity, food quality and sticking as close as you can to feeding times. Most falconry books will tell you to vary your bird’s diet as much as possible. This is wise from a health point of view and I am sure the bird enjoys the change. But using this variety of food types makes it much harder to maintain a level weight. If you were trying to teach a bird something very important such as jumping to the fist, high jumping, catching prey for the first time or kite training, it might be a good idea to feed exactly the same food every day for the important part of the training programme. There is enough to try figure out about your bird’s behaviour at this stage without factoring in what effect different food types are having on her. This is where I find day old chicks very handy, they are clean, the birds love them and they are uniform in size, which makes gauging how much to feed in the field very easy.

So over the years of trying to become a competent falconer, I have made more mistakes than a one armed juggler. I have finally got some idea how to control my bird’s weight and can now get back to my original plan which was………………..oh, I remember now, to actually go out hunting and maybe even catch something!

T Byrne 2002

“Lamping!”
“You don’t do that, do you?’’

I once sat at a table with some well known British falconers, purists from ‘Ye Olde Scool of Fauconrie’- you know the type, when I happened to mention that my female Redtail was catching rabbits both day and night. I couldn’t believe the reaction it got, ‘It’s unnatural’, ‘hawks shouldn’t fly at night’, ‘that’s not cricket’. Luckily for me nobody was armed, the fact we had just finished a conversation about another traditional past time; adultery, didn’t seem to bother them at all.

Lamping with a hawk does seem to be a controversial subject, it is unnatural, it is definitely not cricket, but it can be very fruitful. The only argument against lamping with hawks that I do agree with is that the flights are not as spectacular as daytime flights. You lose a lot of the excitement of the hunt; the hawk will either catch its prey or return to you for the next try. If you do it for pest control reasons, though, the purists don’t seem to mind as much. So I suppose it’s all right to do it - once you don’t have any fun!

There is a lot to be said in favour of lamping. Most ordinary people have ordinary jobs, so when winter arrives and they have no daylight hours at home, what happens to the birds? You could do as the purists above do and let the birds sit on their perch until the days grow longer, or you could fly them in the evenings with the lamp – which would the bird prefer? When winter arrives, rabbits can be very hard to find, with nights being so long, the few that have survived have no reason to be out and about during the day, they naturally prefer the comfort of darkness. So, unless you use ferrets or have a good hawking dog to flush them from cover, you will be buying a lot of your hawk food. I lamp to feed my motley carnivorous menagerie (that includes the kids) and to keep neighbouring landowners happy, after all they don’t begrudge me the odd pheasant.

A farmer next to me had a visit from another neighbour to overlook his crops, apparently (and I have only discovered this recently) they view each other’s cattle and crops in the same way as pigeon fanciers or falconers like to show off their birds. Anyway, while they were sizing up the crops, the visitor asked why there was so little crop damage and so few rabbits on the farm. He was then told about my nocturnal activities with hawks, dogs and lamp, and how I, on the wettest, wildest winter nights, venture out under cover of darkness to save his crops from the ravaging hoards, arriving home with bags full of rabbits and pigeons and other crop eating vermin. Slight exaggeration on his part, but I didn’t let on. Now the interesting bit, the second farmer asked, if it wasn’t too much trouble, would I come and lamp on his land too!

Weather conditions are very important. Traditionally the lamper was accompanied by a dog and carried out his activities on the blackest, windiest nights, while sane folk barricade themselves indoors in front of the television and a warm fire. There is no point venturing out when there is a large moon as the rabbits will be watching your approach and act accordingly, the same goes for a windless night as you will be heard even before you enter the field. Conditions are only slightly different when using a hawk. Rain, which doesn’t matter to the dog enthusiast, will have your hawk feeling miserable in no time and you will find yourself trudging home through the mud, reaching for the hair dryer to save your bird from pneumonia. If the wind is too high it can be a nuisance to the hawker. A hawk cannot be expected to fly up-wind anywhere near the speed of a running rabbit and as you should not approach directly down wind for obvious reasons, something less than a gale is preferable. One friend, that regularly lamps his goshawk, reckons that when the wind is too strong, if she doesn’t hit the rabbit by the first turn, that’s it, the rabbit is away home.

Redtails, both males and females are commonly flown at rabbits; one particular male was known locally as the ‘stealth bomber’ because all his missions were at night! Goshawks have successfully been flown at rabbit and pigeon, I regularly use my female sparrowhawk to catch feral pigeons in sheep houses and grain stores and the little musket has been used in the same buildings after sparrows. Ferruginous hawks, ignored and underrated by many could easily be put to good use, particularly the males, which are usually overlooked by most people when choosing a hunting bird. As far as I know they are as yet untried at night.

By far the commonest bird used for lamping is the Harris hawk. They take to it so naturally, a couple of nights of additional training, throwing food into the beam and recalling to the fist and you should be ready to go. The female is the better choice for rabbits, not as fast as the smaller male over a short distance, but strong enough to hold every rabbit. Goshawks and redtails will catch rabbits at night and do it with more style and flair than a Harris, but their ‘give it all you got’ attitude, which works so well in the daytime, could lead them into trouble at night. The easy going style of the Harris suits night flying, where the Goshawk or Redtail fly directly at the rabbit, negotiating fencing and barbed wire on the way, the Harris will usually float up, follow the rabbit from above and wait its chance to strike. This is a very effective technique and much safer. The mother of my female is a master at this style of flying. If a rabbit is spotted, she will leave her owner’s fist, disappear from view and won’t enter the beam of light until she hits the rabbit, striking it from above. The only thing the Harris hawk has going against it is those perfect, unbreakable feathers tend to soak up water like a sponge. After a couple of hits or misses when the ground is wet, her tail and wing tips will be soaked and she will tire more quickly.

Another form of lamping I enjoy is catching wood pigeons in the trees. The local farmers usually supply cartridges to shooters to keep pigeons off their crops, so they are delighted. The bird for this job is a male Harris hawk, he is smaller and quicker through the trees and flying up at steep angles, 30 or 40 feet at a time is harder work for the bigger female. When a hawk is used for both rabbits and pigeons they will often refuse rabbits if they hear the easier option noisily leaving the trees, so it is better, if you can, to keep one bird for one job. When in search of pigeons you will need wind, and lots of it, pitch black and gale force are the perfect conditions. When the winds are high the pigeons will roost lower down in the trees. They don’t like to be blown around on the swaying tops and look for a more sheltered spot lower down. The wind will also cover the sound of your approach and if there is light enough to see you, the pigeons will find a safer refuge. When I am planning to fly the male at pigeons I usually put his weight up quite high; this is for a couple of reasons. Unlike day hawking there are no distractions. When he is on the fist all he can see is what is in the beam, and if he misses his quarry all I do is shine the beam on my fist for his return. Another reason for not having him too low is that when he catches a pigeon he could also have a handful of branches as well, if he is too anxious to get a meal he will hang on for dear life. This usually means upside down, 40 foot up a tree, in the middle of a wood, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a gale. Catching pigeons is what he likes to do and during last winter this one bird caught enough food to feed my family and other animals for weeks on end. This is not an exaggeration; I did say lamping could be very fruitful.

The equipment used is fairly simple; it has to be, because if it goes wrong you’re stuck out there in the dark, and if you’ve ever been lost in the countryside without even the lights of a distant house as a landmark you know how dark dark can get. You could do what I once done, and walk for over an hour in the wrong direction! The lamp is a 12v lamp with full and dipped beams, the dip being used for general walking and to recall the bird to the glove. The battery is a small 12v dry cell like a house alarm battery. The dry cell fits into a small bag held on the belt and leaves room to carry a small rucksack for quarry.

Telemetry is a must, but bells can be a hindrance. Pigeons often fly just before a hawk reaches them, but this happens too often if the hawk is wearing bells. Rabbits too can hear them coming and turn at the last second. My Harris’s wear a second, very small anklet above the normal anklet on one leg; the bell is attached to this with a small cable tie and can be clipped off for lamping or replaced for daytime hawking. At night kills are usually made in sight of the falconer so it’s not a big deal to fly without bells. Telemetry is a different story, if a hawk is on a kill at night and you can’t find her, she could be in trouble. A fox won’t miss many fresh kills and if your hawk happens to be standing on it, well you can imagine the rest. Foxes can also be a danger when your hawk catches a rabbit, as they know well the squealing of a rabbit in trouble and usually come running to administer the coup de grace, a spotlight won’t deter a fox about to grab his dinner.

Some people still believe that the beam of light dazzles the rabbits and you can just pick them up. These people always refuse an invitation to see for themselves, I think they are afraid to get their waxed jackets wet. A night out with a hawk and lamp can be very enjoyable - to watch the hawk as he tries to out-manoeuvre a rabbit. They know when to run and when to hide, where they’re heading for and how to use every obstacle and piece of cover on the way.

My favourite lamping story was told by a friend from the midlands, a well-known area for hunting, where wives sit patiently knitting and waiting for their beloved to return from the field. On this particular night our hero left his cottage and braved the freezing elements, fought the bitter winds and made his way to the leeward side of the hill, where the rabbits would be feeding, getting some shelter from the biting winds. After catching two or three rabbits he was returning home past what could only be described as mid-way between a pond and a swamp. A magpie, disturbed either by the cold or the crunching footsteps below, started to chatter and the brave little Harris took off in pursuit. On goes the beam just in time to illuminate the hawk catching the magpie and both falling to the ground, well they never got to the ground because they ended up in the middle of the frozen pond/swamp, on thin ice. What to do? Never one to lose his head this falconer spied a branch lying across the quagmire and decided to tiptoe out far enough to reach the hawk. As you have probably guessed, the branch broke and he found himself up to the knees in frozen water. Undaunted, he spied a much bigger and sturdier branch growing from the opposite bank, if he could belly crawl, with lamp in one hand, out far enough, he just might be able to reach his hawk. This big branch growing out across the pond had given up growing years before, and with an almighty crack deposited our hero, complete with hawking bag, lamp and battery, up to his neck in freezing cold water. This did not have a positive effect on the battery, and as he plunged into the swamp, he was also plunged into complete darkness. He felt around in the water, found his hawk (which was also drenched and frozen but still clinging to the magpie), dragged himself out of the water and trudged the remaining miles home. He told me this story over the phone, and his parting words were -

“and the women think we’re out enjoying ourselves!”

So as you can see, lamping might not be the ideal way to fly your hawk, but which would you choose? Do as the purists would have us do and leave the bird to stagnate on a perch, waiting for longer days, or charge up your battery?

Tommy Byrne. 2001

‘Hello, my name is …………, I want to get into falconry and I was half thinking of getting a …….

(in this space put anything from a bat falcon to a lammergeyer), but, the only birds available seem to be redtails and harris’s. Are these good beginners birds?’

This type of phone call is getting more common (which is OK by me), but before giving my usual answer of yes and no, I’ll try to explain.

The following is written for those contemplating their first Redtail or Harris Hawk.

These two have become the most popular hunting birds in Ireland today and have largely replaced the more traditional goshawk for a few good reasons:

1. They are easier to breed in captivity than goshawks (eunuchs are probably easier to breed than goshawks and tend not to eat their partner).
2. The quantity and quality of handling at the start, to properly man or tame the bird is not so intense with a Harris or redtail. They are very calm and relaxed compared to goshawks and spars.
3. They suit most people’s modern lifestyle and don’t have to be flown every day, although obviously the more hunting the bird does the better the bird will be.
4. Harris’s and Redtails can be flown and hunted over any type of terrain available in Ireland.
   Like the goshawk and sparrowhawk and unlike the common buzzard (which was the traditional British bird for the beginner) the Harris and Redtail will catch things, edible things, game for the kitchen.
5. Rabbits, pheasants, partridge, grey squirrel, ducks and moorhens are some of the tasty items on the menu for these two hawks.
6. These two species are opportunists, you go hunting but you don’t know what’s going to end up in the bag at the end of the day. (I’ve recently seen my old female Harris dive like an osprey from thirty feet or more into a deep pond after what I presume was a frog).

If you want to fly a sparrowhawk or goshawk don’t get a Harris or Redtail as a stepping stone, a bird to make your mistakes with and then pass on to some poor unfortunate. If you want a Gos, get a Gos, if you want a spar, get a spar, (be very careful here with weight control and diet). The enthusiasm of a serious beginner for his or her first bird should not be wasted on a bird they are not going to keep. Young Harris’s and Redtails are not very fast to mature, lack the size and weight of the adult and so are rarely at their best in the first year. In other words they only get better and better.

Let’s take for granted you are going to choose one of these two species and keep it forever or until one of you expires.

Redtails.

This species is orientated mostly towards ground quarry. The braver females can take hares, but don’t count on it; the Irish hare is no sissy. Both sexes will take squirrel (not everyone’s first choice for main course). Both will take pheasant and other birds if they spot them on the ground, but in Ireland this species really excels at rabbits. The females will usually hold every rabbit they come in contact with, but being bigger won’t be as quick off the mark as the smaller male. The male won’t hold every rabbit it hits, but if you are going ‘rough shooting’ with the chance of the odd rabbit, pheasant, squirrel or moorhen then the male may be the more exciting option.

Redtails are said to have two bad faults, being moody and being footy. The so-called ‘moodiness’ (sitting up a tree and refusing to come down) usually comes after a failed attempt at quarry. A Redtail in the wild may sit for hours on a tree or post waiting for some creature to pass below, it will then dive down and try catch it, and if it fails goes back up on the post to wait for it’s next victim. So you can see where they get the patience. Good initial training and giving large rewards after each failed attempt will keep this problem to a minimum. The other problem is ‘footiness’ or striking out at your ungloved hand. This is something you definitely want to avoid, as the Redtail, so the experts tell us and I agree, has a stronger grip for its size than any other bird. A lot of the time this problem arises from food association, the bird is tit-bitted from the right hand or it sees food being passed to the glove. In other words don’t let the ungloved right hand be associated in the bird’s brain with food.

Most Americans choose the Redtail as their first bird, their only other choice is the kestrel (which can be trained to hunt starlings and other small birds, but won’t fill your larder). They have to trap their own ‘passage’ bird – a bird strong on the wing and killing for itself. The bird’s next stage is to be tamed by man, one of its only enemies. These passage birds always carry a slight fear or respect for man, aviary-bred eyasses have never had this initial fear. So the American’s tame their already hunting hawk, whereas we try to teach our tame hawk to hunt.
What you are trying to achieve with your aviary-bred Redtail is:
1.Reduce her (or his) weight as quickly as possible to get her trained and killing for herself and to stop looking to you for food.
2. Reduce her weight as slowly as possible to avoid sudden hunger, sustained hunger can bring on bad habits. So you can see, as with any other hawk, it’s a fine balancing act.

Flying Redtails is an under-rated past-time. They have a bigger heart and crash into cover that would deter most other raptors, when they go for it they really give all they have. Some of my best memories have been with my female, hunting rabbits on the mountains of Wicklow, with the dog working below us on a bright and bitter winter’s morning.
I was once quoted as saying ‘flying Redtails is like puberty, everyone has to go through it’. I don’t believe that anymore.

Harris hawks.

Named by Audubon after one of his cronies, also called the bay-winged hawk, this hawk has picked up a few other names along the way, like ‘Mexican chicken’. The Harris is taking over as Ireland’s most popular falconry bird. It can be the nicest of birds – I have a photograph of my three year old daughter sharing a bow perch and hugging my female Harris (don’t try this at home folks, you’ll get chocolate all over your hawk). It can also be the nastiest of birds – a friend has a nice little scar under his eye after a Harris hawk took a definite dislike to him.

The one thing the Harris has in its favour is the fact that in the wild they hunt in a pack. Now, this is no small thing, it not only means that you can fly two or more Harris’s together, it also means that you are viewed as a member of the pack as is the ferret and dog (be careful here and socialise all together first). It also means that the Harris naturally follows when you’re walking (to keep up with the pack), where the Redtail (usually a solitary hunter) needs a little bit of training to do this.

Most people that put Harris Hawks down (usually those that haven’t flown one), say they only fly half-heartedly at quarry. There are two reasons why it might seem to be so. With a well trained Harris hawk there is a big difference between its actual hunting weight and its top safe flying weight (up to 12% in my two birds). So the Harris that looks as if it’s putting every effort into catching, only to refuse easily taken prey is usually a bit high in weight and doesn’t want the struggle all on it’s own – if this was a pack situation it would have all the help it needed. So weight control needs careful attention if you want to catch dinner. The other reason Harris’s fly half-heartedly is a simple but effective hunting technique, soaring away, minding her own business, (impersonating a vegetarian), then suddenly performing a spectacular wing-over and diving on some unsuspecting prey.

Like most other creatures that hunt in a pack, Harris Hawks are vocal, from near silent to downright noisy, so the age to take your Harris can be a problem. Cut a very young bird’s weight too low too quick and you could have a screamer on your hands, (a noise that can drive you over the edge), leave it in the aviary too long and you will definitely have your work cut out just to tame the beast. Some breeders leave young with parents until November, twenty five to thirty weeks old. No thanks!

Tom and Jennifer Coulson, who hunt a pack of Harris’s say that 15 to 20 weeks old is the perfect age. Martin Hollinshead says very soon after hard penning (all feathers fully grown). My female was taken at this latter stage, was noisy for her first season (which I had to cut short to save my sanity), she is the sweetest bird to handle and quietly vocal only if anything strange is about.

Female Harris hawks are powerful enough to handle any rabbit or pheasant, but in woodland the smaller faster male really shines. Where he might refuse that big fat rabbit sitting in the sunshine, a Harris can’t ignore anything moving about in cover. Some of the best fun I’ve had is in mature woodland with the male and female in the trees waiting for the Brittany to go on point, after the flush it is pure chaotic fun!

Harris hawks at the right weight are lions in lamb’s clothing, my male and female have both taken cats, something to avoid for the birds’ sake. I know of two instances where females have struck large dogs; assault with intent.

So as you can see, Redtails and Harris Hawks are a force to be reckoned with, but are they a good beginner’s bird?
Well…….. … yes and no!

Tommy Byrne 1998.