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!
Hawk Heaven 