Thanks for sharing, guys! Great pictures, great hobby!

Heal fast, Jim! STP registration starts Tuesday!

OK...now that I'm back from Urgent Care...:rolleyes: To answer your questions...

patz...VERY TRUE...there is a BIG DEBATE going on between US Fish and Wildlife and falconers regarding the amount of incidental kills by these farms. USFW won't let falconers trap eagles because there is a set quota to be taken from the wild. USFW would rather those were JUST what is lost to the wind co's....not wind co's AND falconers.

HD...I AM trying to be the most interesting man ;) ...life is to be lived...you only get 1 shot at it, right?

Quick...it's L&L electronics...bought it 2nd hand from a guy getting out...DOES give you confidence...i lose her AT LEAST once a session...often she will take a perch much farther away than expected, or sometimes hunts on her own. Or...like 1 time, stole another hawk's squirrel and proceeded to munch it down on a light pole over a freeway:eek: I looked kinda goofy on the side of the road swinging a half a quail to coax her down. Luckily, she was still hungry!

DeWolf...in the wild only 1 in 5 sees it's 1st birthday. Causes are many, such as sibling killing them in the nest, being kicked out...cars, guns, electrocution...from the wild, eagles and great horned owls take a fair amount. From those, only 1 in 4 makes it to 5 yrs...with breeding beginning anywhere between 3 and 5 yrs old. There are estimated to be 5-6 million red-tailed hawks in the CONUS. That's why the gov't allows the take of these birds by falconers. The goal is to give this bird a fighting chance. I will keep her for 2 yrs. thru my apprenticeship. After that, I can get a number of different types of birds...as well as continue to keep her. When done, they can be re-introduced to the wild. All the falconer does is minimize human contact with the bird for a period of a couple weeks while feeding it regularly. Then, fully stuff the bird and release preferably in an area she's hunted before. She may get kicked out and have to find territory for herself...that's why you feed them up...gives them 5-7 days w/o eating while they find suitable hunting grounds. My sponsor's birds are 27 and 4 yrs old. In Pa., there was a guy still hunting his bird at 35!

WAYNE!!! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER call a falconer's bird a pet! That is the biggest insult! These birds have NO emotional attachment to you. It's only thru strict weight management the bird chooses to work with you. On the other side of the coin...I've fallen for her in a big way, and would be crushed if anything happens to her. But...when you are out in nature, anything can happen! Many falconers lose birds to nature. You just have to be willing to accept this can happen and try to minimize the risks...i.e. don't fly near wind farms, stay away from transformers, etc.

And finally...today I made a BIG mistake! Pepermint has always had impeccable manners on her kill, letting me in to help dispatch it, get her out of thick brush, etc. I didn't use my gloved hand between her and the rabbit and paid the price. She drove 1 of her talons AT LEAST a half inch into my hand...keeping a death grip on it where I couldn't do anything but wait till she re positioned herself to eat the rabbit. EVERYTIME either the rabbit or I moved, she re-applied more pressure. Like quicksix said...I'll only make that mistake ONCE! Thx guys for listening! Best, Jim.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423447716.jpg

Oops.

No insult intended Jim. Obviously, I no NOTHING about hawking. SmileWavy

If the site doesn't teach you something new everyday.

That is absolutely the coolest, craziest, most interesting....heading for dictionary, out of words to describe.

Im speechless.

Please please share more!

Sorry about your hand, hope you have a speedy recovery.

That is a very cool bird.

I've got something in the works...can't really talk about it...but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTQPqGdzRHs

BTW...Chris...find us a couple spots out there...I love taking people along and Pepper doesn't mind the company either!

And the Doc will have a story to tell.

"This guy came in with a Talon wound from a Hawk". Not something they see often (I hope)

I live in a fairly rural area and one day as I was coming to a stop at a 4 way stop I saw a huge Owl fly right over the hood of my car and grab a rat or small possum off the side of the road down in the ditch. It was just at dawn. I wish I had a video of it all. It was very cool.

On a recent trip up to Enid, OK coming west on highway 64 we must have seen over a dozen hawks sitting on utility poles and in trees. They must have a great population of them in the area. I would love to see one in action.

Glen...the birds are migratory. Many falconers will follow the migration looking for just the right bird...either coloring, foot size, aggression. During these trapping sessions, it is not uncommon to trap hawks in the double digits every day for a few days in a row. They are migrating, they're hungry and they are all competing for a finite food source.

Very cool, I'm surprised it let you pet it. I thought pet a hawk = lose a finger.

I also was expecting a thread about the other kind of Hawking, not one with birds.

I have been feeding the ravens and a pair of hawks for almost two years at my place. It started with the male sitting on top of my power pole after Thanksgiving the year before last. I had a piece of raw turkey neck and took it outside. As soon as the hawk saw it, he started flying toward me. I tossed it on the driveway and he grabbed it & took it back to the power pole. I was really surprised. Almost each morning, I take scraps out for the ravens & hawks (the female is usually there too now). The male flies toward me when I hold the scrap up and will grab it from the driveway within 10 feet from me. The female isn't so sharp. She sits in the tree and the ravens get hers half the time. Lately they haven't been around as much. I think it might be the nesting season approaching. They've been flying around together with the female screeching constantly. I thought they migrated, but I guess not in this case.

That's very cool!

We have almost too many hawks here to be honest. Last year was such a low rain year that the vegetation didn't grow, so the predatory birds had a bounty of rodents to eat. We had a few small eagles, a falcon, and four hawks all fighting for food above our property. One day, the hawks did a luftberry circle of the four of them about 100' up.

This year we have a pair of owls living in our redwood tree. They're mean.

Cool hawk. I would have thought a hawk would go after a crow/raven but having just spent a couple minutes on Wiki I was wrong. Plus picking on crows is definitely a gang fight.

Marv, I curious why are you feeding the ravens? I live in South Escondido near San Pasqual and we have a tremendous crow population. Like clockwork they migrate to/from their nesting sites daily and literally fill the air - 10's of thousands of them. Our home is under one of the flight paths and it's very interesting to watch them swoop over in the evening. They appear highly organized and follow a very strict social structure.

The hawks don't pay any attention to the ravens, and the ravens defer to the hawks when they (the hawks) fly down for the food. The ravens come within about two feet, doing their sideways dance and will grab something & fly away. We seem to have a small community of ravens around here (eastern S.D. Co.). It started out with a pair and now there are about four or five. They all seem to know each other. I never see ravens in numbers like you describe here. Of course they pester the hawks while the hawks are soaring around. Ravens are great indicators of what is moving by on the property. If a coyote or bobcat comes by, they do their squawking and diving routine.

Amazing! How does one train the bird ? She could fly away at anytime yet comes back. Wow!

Thru weight management...Pepper flies well between 1188g and 1225g. Yesterday she was at the top end. She killed something in a junkyard...an area I didn't have any access to. I spent till dark looking w/ binos...then till 8:30 p.m. w/ telemetry. Was able to find her in some palm trees...put her to bed and came back this a.m. in the dark. She'd moved to a light pole and proceeded to hunt for 45 minutes w/o coming down for my offerings of quail. FINALLY chased her down in an open field and presented a lure with a quail on it. NOPE...kept grabbing and trying to fly off. FINALLY, put a day-old-chick on my glove and she flew to that...grabbed the jesses and was only 10 min. late to work! We're still working on her table manners! That uni-boob is her crop and all she's eaten.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423674622.jpg

being meat eaters; is her krap just downright gross? how do you clean a hawk-pen.

you power wash it?

i just heard on the new that Lufthansa is allowing birds on the planes. apparently the middle east it is a huge thing.

jim gets the craziest/most unique "hobby" award in my book.

Foul indeed...and they dump about every 20 minutes...#1 and #2 are mixed together and "sliced" FORCEFULLY expelled away from the body. Falcons' just drop straight down. Power wash her house every 3 mos. Her transporter, about every other time.

Jim.
You're committed for sure.