Subjects covered are

• Housing
• Hygiene
• Feeding and food preparation
• Health
• Species suitability
• Acquiring your first bird
• Essential equipment
• Picking up and carrying
• Feeding, manning and initial training techniques
• Weighing and weight management
• Flying to the fist on a creance
• The law and licensing
• Theory of animal training / Behavioral shaping

For further information please contact the Bird of Prey Centre on 059-9156878

Thanking you……………….. Woodlands Falconry

And to all those that couldn’t make it, but sent their best wishes.

The whole day had a fantastic atmosphere about it and somehow or other the sun managed to shine all day. (I had prayed to every god I know; from Gneisha to Thor, with a special “please” to the Aztec Sun God)

A big thanks too to the speakers; Siobhan from Wicklow Leader who helped me so much. And Terry Flanagan from “Mooney Show” fame who was so good to change his plans to be there.

And a huge thank you to Saoirse Ronan who said a few words and cut the ribbon for us, and to herself and her parents who gave some super prizes for the raffle.

Anyway, it couldn’t have went better and I just wanted to thank everyone for putting in so much work.

Cheers,

Tommy

We are situated in Rathwood Home and Garden, just five minutes from Tullow County Carlow.

Contact us:
059-9156878 Wednesday to Sunday 10.30 ‘til 5

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.  

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

‘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.

“The study of the art of falconry is considered a vital part of the education of a gentleman.” - George Turbervile 1611

Falconry; the art of hunting with a Bird Of Prey is an ancient art and the basics have changed little over the past couple of thousand years.

If you would like to learn falconry, either to broaden your knowledge on the subject or with a view to owning and flying a hawk of your own,

Please feel free to contact us.

On a woodlands falconry course you will learn the equivalent of the UK Lantra Award

Unit 1 Bird of Prey Management and Husbandry.

• Module 1 Housing

• Module 2 Hygiene

• Module 3 Feeding and food preparation

• Module 4 Health

• Module 5 Species suitability

• Module 6 Acquiring your first bird

Unit 2 Falconry Basics

• Module 7 Essential equipment

• Module 8 Picking up and carrying

• Module 9 Feeding, manning and initial training techniques

• Module 10 Weighing and weight management

• Module 11 Flying to the fist on a creance

Also covered on our courses:

The law and licensing

Theory of animal training / Behavioral shaping

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