Falconry during the Renaissance by Gregg Hake

“Whatsoever he be that undertaketh this profession I will wish him an able body, a quicke and most of all an earnest love and delight thereunto; to such a man a hawke will quickly teach knowledge, but of him that wanteth wit she will make a foole, and of a dull spirit a true pack-horse.” – Edmund Bert Treatise of Hawks and Hawking (1619)

The sport of falconry has intruiged and inspired men and women through the ages.  The relationship between raptor and man is unlike any other in the animal kingdom, and the experience of watching the raptor in flight is always exhilarating and awe-inspiring.  Their intelligence is humbling, and as an apprentice you need only make one mistake to see how quickly the tables are turned in the relationship.   

Falconry enjoyed a resurgence of interest during the Renaissance (14th-16th century). Unlike our modern and more democratized times, the practice of falconry was subject to distinctive socio-economic guidelines. The basic rules as to who can have what type of bird are found in a poem in the Boke of St. Albans  (for the entire text: http://www.archive.org/stream/bokeofsaintalban00bernuoft#page/n5/mode/2up), written in 1486, six years before Columbus “sailed the ocean blue”:  

‘An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King:
a Peregrine for a Prince, & a Saker for a Knight,
a Merlin for a lady, a Goshawk for a Yeoman,
a Sparrowhawk for a Priest, & a Kestrel for a Knave.’

Nowadays, the choice of raptor relates more to geography and the availability of suitable hunting grounds than just about any other factor.  Most apprentices in the United States begin with a Red-tailed Hawk, though some – I guess the ‘Knaves’ of our day – start with the smaller Kestrel.

Once called the ‘Sport of Kings,’ falconry is now much more accessible, especially in the United States.  Falconers today share a rich heritage and a passion for hunting with birds of prey.  If you haven’t had a chance to see a falconry demonstration, I encourage you to find a local falconry club and check their calendar of events!

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The Lure

For today’s post I am going to explain a little bit about the lure, a very important piece of falconry equipment. The lure serves a few different purposes for a falconer, and its use is mostly determined by what type of bird you are flying.

For a red-tail, the lure is used as a safety net so you can always get your bird back quickly. During the hawk’s initial training, it is taught that every time the lure is shown a large food reward is given. This causes the hawk to come and attack the lure when it is unlikely to come to any other stimulus or call. In a way, the lure functions as a simulated prey object for the hawk, and you can see a predatory response in a hawk when the lure is shown.

Heath grabs the lure

There have been times when Heath has not wanted to come to the glove when I called him. Even with a large tidbit on the glove, he didn’t even seem interested. When the lure was pulled out and swung his response to me was immediate, even with the same size reward.

A falconry apprentice is expected to make much of his initial equipment, and Gregg and I had a fun time creating our lures. We borrowed a leather stitching kit from my uncle, and I was able to pick up some nice looking scraps of pig and cow leather. Learning to stitch leather was an interesting challenge. I had to learn to cut a pattern, use an awl, and stitch together two pieces of (heavy) leather in a way that would look nice and hold up to the abuse of a hawk’s repeated attacks. I learned to sew the saddle stitch, which uses two needles and sinew thread and is a very durable stitch. If one side of the thread gets cut, the whole thing is unlikely to unravel.

The lure I made is about the size of an adult’s palm, and is stuffed with fabric to prevent injury to the hawk when he hits it in the air. I attached a string so I could swing it, and I can attach food to it with an ingenious method my sponsor suggested. It has held up for the entire hunting season and will hopefully last for a few more.

Success!

For a falconer flying an actual falcon, the use for a lure is more involved. I have never trained or flown a falcon, but from what I understand the lure is used to keep up their stamina, and to train them to attack with the wind to give them an advantage over flying prey. It can be made of leather, sometimes with fake (or real) attached bird’s wings. Here’s a video that will show you how a falcon is flown to the lure:

The tricky part of all this is if the falconer moves the lure too far away from the falcon when it is stooping (attacking), it will lose its motivation because it doesn’t believe it can ever catch the prey. Precision timing is needed to keep the falcon believing that it can catch the lure, and you have to be fair and let it catch the lure when it deserves to.

I am sure there are many more falconry uses for the lure that I’m not aware of, and many different ways to do the things that I already do. Let me know in the comments!

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A-moulting we will go…

With the falconry hunting season coming to a close, it’s time for most falconers to put their birds up for the moult. Since Gregg and I are first year apprentices who had to trap immature hawks, our red-tails were both born in spring of 2009. Because our  hawks are less than a year old, they still have their immature plumage. For a red-tail this means they don’t have a red tail yet.

When the moult begins, a falconer raises the bird’s weight higher than it was when they were hunting. This is possible because the bird’s response to the falconer is no longer important, and the bird needs every bit of extra energy the food provides to grow strong, healthy feathers.

For some falconers, this is when they release their bird. A released falconry bird has the advantage of coming out of the winter hunting season healthy and well cared for, while also having matured in its ability to catch game and always having guaranteed food from the falconer. 70-90 percent of wild raptors will die within 12 months of being born. They die from natural causes such as predation, and from unnatural causes like electrocution. Thankfully,the first year mortality rate is much lower for falconry birds. When a bird is trapped for falconry, it has a much better chance of eventually becoming part of the breeding population.

During the moult, a hawk will typically lose one feather at a time, maintaining the ability of flight throughout the process. There is a pattern that they will fall out in, which changes depending on whether the hawk is a true hawk (accipiter), falcon (falco), or broadwing hawk (buteo). A red-tail is a boadwing hawk, so Heath’s moult should follow a predictable pattern.

I would like to invite any readers of this blog to follow along with me during Heath’s moult. I will be posting pictures during some of the different phases of the process. Let me know what you think!

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Mews with a View

One of the great pleasures of becoming a falconer is the process of designing and building the housing for your bird.  The regulations are clear as to what is required for your mews and weathering, but creative license is granted provided that the resultant structure is safe, sanitary and sound.  The Georgia requirements are found here: http://georgiafalconryassociation.com/becoming.htm 

Let the planning begin!

 

I had the pleasure of visiting several facilities, including those of my sponsor and another local falconer.  Seeing an actual facility helps immensely.  Books and the internet provided other ideas and suggestions, ranging from small and simple to grand and elaborate.  Books we reference include: “Modern Falconer” by Durman-Walters, “The Red-Tailed Hawk” by McGranaghan, “The Art of Falconry” by Hohenstaufen, “Falconry and Hawking” by Glasier, “Falconry: Art and Practice” by Ford and “North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks” by Beebe and Webster.  We also found www.themodernapprentice.com and www.nafex.net to be quite helpful.    

After settling on the concept of an integrated mews/weathering, my friends and I set to designing it on paper.  Our sponsor was a helpful source of tips and hints, backed by years of experience.  The final design had each facility at 10′ x20′.  My brother-in-law, Zach Travers, and I both passed our test before the end of the 2009 trapping season, so we decided to build two units behind our barn post-haste.  None of us has a life of leisure, so we worked evenings over the course of a month to complete the project.  

Site Selection

 

After reading about the many respiratory health issues that can be caused by poorly designed facilities, we started with a sloping grade and French drains to make sure that the flooring stayed dry and was easy to clean. 

Mapping the drainage system

 

The floor is pea gravel and I think that we ordered 5 tons to cover the 20’x20′ space, plus the hallway.  

French drains

 

Hole after hole after hole...

 

The barred walls required the most engineering.  We used metal to avoid the wear and cracking issues common to PVC installations over time.  We managed to modify a $79 drill press to facilitate holes of a common depth and vertical profile.  We spaced the bars for everything from a Kestrel to an Eagle.  Here is what they looked like before we put it all together. 

Framing begins...

 

The solid walls are Hardy plank, and their natural color somewhat matches the hawk mutes, for those concerned about the aesthetic value of the installation.  Add to that the ease of cleaning and the durability and you have a good material choice. 

The mews/weathering and the barn are separated by an enclosed hallway, which provides the extra security of a double-door while moving the birds from the mews to the equipment room.  The barn door is typically closed when we are working with the birds, so I suppose you could say that we have a triple-door system. 

Zach installing Hardy plank

 

Bars and shingles

 

Fortunately for us, our barn suffered hail damage and we were able to time the roofing of the mews with the barn re-roofing.  The first 10′ of the mews are covered by a shingled roof and the remaining 10′ of the weathering are covered by horizontal bars. 

I’ll follow up this post with more pictures so that you can enjoy the final product!

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The Ancient Sport of Falconry

Man Holding Falcon Credit: George Turberville, The Booke of Falconrie or Hawking (1576; London: Thomas Purfoot, 1611), National Sporting Library.

 

Hooded White Greenlander falcon. Credit: H. Schlegel and A.H. Verster de Wolverhorst, Traité de Fauconnerie, Leiden, Düsseldorf: Arnz & Comp, 1853, reprinted in 1979 by Pion Limited, London. National Sporting Library.

 

Raptors have captured the hearts and imagination of mankind for thousands of years.  Their grace, power and determination are enveloped in a stoic, inquisitive and vigilant esprit. 

Often referred to as the “noblest of sports,” falconry emerges from the mists of antiquity in both the Asian steppes and Persia, though its birthplace is yet to be firmly established.  According to the International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey, “…the one who used birds of prey for the first time was Tahmooreth, a king of the Pishdadid dynasty, 2,000 years before Zoroaster who himself lived around 6,000 BC.”1  No one knows where or why the sport began, but its pedigree goes back to the roots of recorded human history. 

Frederick II von Hohenstaufen (Miniature from the Book of Falcons by Frederick II. Bibliotheca Palatina, Vatican Library)

 

More recently (in the 13th century), the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily and Jerusalem Frederick II von Hohenstaufen who was known in his time as “Stupor Mundi” or “wonder of the world,” took some 30 years to compile the falconer’s bible of Western falconry, entitled De Arte Venandi cum Avibus.23  This incredible work is a complete manual of falconry as well as a rich source of ornithological information.  What other sport has as its textbook one that was written over 700 years ago?  

Incredible!  

          

1 http://www.i-a-f.org/history.html Accessed 13 February 2010 

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor Accessed 13 February 2010 

3 http://www.scribd.com/doc/20486846/De-Arte-Venandi-Cum-Avibus-1 Accessed 13 February 2010

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Hawk Eye

Did you know that hawks can see roughly four times better than humans?  Their eyes exhibit a number of peculiarities, one of which stood out to me in a recent presentation by Dan Hart of the America Bald Eagle Foundation (www.baldeagles.org).  Raptors have the ability to perceive the near ultraviolet part of the light spectrum (from 320-400nm), which is outside of the visible spectrum for you and me. 

This capability is put to work in intra and inter-sexual signalling, navigation, prey identification, the control of circadian rhythms and intraspecies communication.  The capability is provided through an additional cone, which sees UV instead of the typical red, green or blue that our cones detect.

Eye of a Red-Tailed Hawk

Several days ago I was speaking with Luke, a veterinary student at the University of Georgia, and he conjectured that the American Crow is likely the most colorful and bright bird in the sky when viewed through a raptors eyes.  Isn’t that an amazing thought?  Anything looks different from a perspective other than the one we’re used to!

Another important difference is the raptor’s superior flicker fusion frequency.  Humans have a flicker fusion frequency of 60 hz whereas raptors is significantly higher.  We see, in essence, more slowly than they do.  A television image, for instance, that appears seamless and full motion video to us would appear jerky to them, whereas a raptor would see something much faster, like the flicker of a squirrel tail, would appear seamless to them and blurry to us.  Even the incandescent lights we use would appear to flicker to the raptor, like a bad flourescent light would appear to us.

There is so much more to discover about the hawk’s eyes and I will look to post more later if there is interest.

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Introducing Heath, the Red-Tailed Hawk

For most prospective falconers, there is a pretty big time gap between first learning about falconry and the experience of holding your newly trapped hawk. The in-between time is packed with studying for your test, building your mews, finding a sponsor, and waiting to get permitted.  Each step takes time, and sometimes it seems time moves extra slow.  

There was, however, one defining moment in the process: when the hawk stooped to the trap, it was clearly worth the wait.  

The Red-Tailed Hawk who I untangled from his unexpected predicament weighed in at 900 grams (likely a male), and was named Heath.  Finally, the time was here! It was the fulfillment of months of planning and work, but the beginning of an even bigger undertaking.  

As soon as I saw him, I knew this hawk would make a great friend and hunting partner.  He hasn’t disappointed.  He is quick, agile, and is willing to chase a squirrel tirelessly through the woods (as we discovered one day – it was good exercise).  

Ready for the Hunt

 

He is also very smart, which I understand it true of most raptors.  As an apprentice, you learn that there are many ways that the hawk can subtly change the relationship into one where you begin dispensing food on demand.  Ask me about the time Heath decided that he would just sit up in a tree until he could see the tidbit was big enough for his trouble…  

Issues like that are a common occurrence for a falconry apprentice.  I learn and see many similar things  every day working with Heath.  

So far, this has been quite the adventure. I can’t wait to see what Heath teaches me next.

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Lexi, my Red-Tailed Hawk

After Lexi's first successful hunt

 

Lexi at rest on the glove

I’d like to introduce you to Lexi, my red-tailed hawk.  Lexi is my first raptor and she’s a delight to behold.  This is my first year as an apprentice, and while every day provides a new learning experience (or five), Lexi has done her best to make the transition a smooth one.    

Trapped at 1,535 grams in Clayton County (just south of Atlanta), Lexi hit the bal chatri trap with a full crop.  A good omen – the sign of a hard-core hunter!  Zach and I flew her back from a friend’s house located on the private airstrip called Mallard’s Landing (GA04) and she behaved like a champ.  Fortunately her giant hood fit perfectly in the plane’s interior baggage compartment.     

At the time I thought it was her first flight at 200 miles per but after a stoop I witnessed two months later where Lexi rocketed straight down after a squirrel I wasn’t so sure.  There is little in the natural kingdom that compares to a raptor’s flight capabilities, except perhaps their own inventiveness in creating new maneuvers to capture the targeted prey.    

Several weeks of manning and training ensued and the first free flight was as perfect mix of exhilarating and non-eventful.  I’m sure that every new falconer must share the awe and respect that I have for their first bird.  There’s simply nothing like the experience of manning a wild-trapped hawk.    

Lexi’s demeanor, if you will allow me the anthropomorphism, could only be described as proud.  Her aspect, noble.  Her attacks, terrifying.  Such is the life of a working red-tailed hawk.    

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Hello world!

Welcome to Hawk Heaven, an online resource dedicated to the art and practice of falconry.  This blog is sponsored by Gregg Hake and Zach Travers, apprentice falconers in the foothills of Northeast Georgia.  Whether you’re an aspiring, active or retired falconer or simply interested in learning more about falconry, we invite you to share your thoughts and observations on this ancient sport.

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