Summer Eyas Fun

I'm raising an eyas male Gyrfalcon for a friend of mine this summer.  The bird will eventually go into his breeding project and hopefully help produce "falcons of the future" through artificial insemination.   My family  and I have been calling him Nanook (or just "Bird" according to my youngest) and he's been a lot of fun so far...

14 days old

~21 days

~26 days old and getting his first taste of the bath pan

~26 days old and already reading

~30 days old

~34 days old

-RVZ

What Ever Happened to the Coops?

Nothing.  Still have her and are up about almost 100 head of game.  Manners are pretty good and we have had relatively few problems.  I've been out of town much of the past two months and haven't been able to sit down write about her, but the details will come.....

-RVZ

Aging Female Kestrels

Click on photo to enlarge

I thought I would share my observations of how I age female kestrels, since it seems to be hard for a lot of people. The sub terminal black band being close to equal size to the bands above it can be a good indicator of passage in a lot of birds but some, like the one above, its pretty hard to tell. 

I've trapped a bunch over the past couple of years and I only counted passage by stress bars across the tail, then I compared them to known hags. There are a couple of stand out indicators between the two. At least from the birds I've trapped in Oklahoma. One is the overall color. Passage birds are a dull orange compared to hags that are more of a reddish orange. The black markings on hags are much sharper than that of the passage birds. The most distinguishing feature that I have noticed is the color of the primaries and secondaries. On the hags they are almost black and on the passage birds they are more brown. Also the Hags have a distinct white trailing edge to their primaries and secondaries, where the passage birds have a more tan trailing edge. 



-RVZ

Wildlife commissioners denounce HB 1249

Post lifted from Ed Godfrey's "Guide to the Great Outdoors" blog

State wildlife commissioners on Monday criticized a bill that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday which requires hunters to first get permission of a landowner before retrieving a lost hunting dog.
HB 1249 passed the state House of Representatives 80-11 on Thursday and now goes to the state Senate.
Commissioner Ed Abel of Oklahoma City, an avid coon hunter, said the bill threatens honest sportsmen with fines and possible jail sentences.
At the end of the monthly meeting of the Oklahoma Wildlife Commission, Abel asked his fellow commissioners to pass a resolution voicing their opposition to the bill and send it to each lawmaker in the state Legislature.
The commission chose not to vote on a resolution, fearing it might be a violation of the state’s open meeting laws since HB 1249 was not listed on the agenda for Monday’s meeting.
However, most commissioners agreed the bill is bad for Oklahoma sportsmen.
“If the real point (of the bill) is cattle rustling, there is no reason to include hunting dogs,” said Commissioner David Riggs of Sand Springs, who suggested an amendment to HB 1249 that would exclude hunting dogs from the legislation.
Authors of HB 1249 contend the measure is to crack down on cattle rustling, but Commissioner Harland Stonecipher of Centrahoma on Monday called that a lie.
“It’s really about hunting dogs,” said Stonecipher, a longtime houndsman.
Hunters presently have the right to retrieve their dogs when they have wandered on another person’s land. However, it would be considered trespassing under HB 1249.
Coon hunting is a deeply rooted tradition in Oklahoma. National competitions in coon hunting are often held in Oklahoma but that would end if HB 1249 becomes law, Abel said.
State wildlife commissioners discussed the possibility of calling a special meeting to address the legislation.


This could make retrieving one's bird very difficult.....


-RVZ

Best Pics from the 2010-2011 Season in No Particular order

And that ends another falconry season.  Next year Daniel will be a general falconer and his falconry horizons will be open, I'll definitely be flying my falcons, and who knows what new things may come.

-RVZ

Human Planet

Below I've embedded a couple of video clips from the upcoming BBC series Human Plant that feature falconry. Looks to pretty interesting even without the birds of prey.








-RVZ

Duck Hawking Season Ending.

Good things must come to an end.  I've been feeling the pressures from lack of time and an increase in other commitments lately and decided that I would finish up my season with duck number 30.  Tulsa has been nearly lights out on ducks since mid December and I didn't think it would take more than a day to hit the final goal but the crafty late season ducks had other ideas.

Tulsa closing on ducks.  He's left of center in the picture.

Saturday, we found a small pond full of Ringnecks, a fairly easy catch.  Tulsa rang up and knocked a drake to the ground next to a bush.  The duck quickly scrambled up under that bush and the falcon landed on the ground confused as to what happened to his prey.  The little duck ended up scooting out the other side and flew away to live another day.  Tulsa then took to the air again, rapidly ascending to a nice pitch and I made my way across the field to another pond that was holding ducks.  This time a large mixed group of ducks got up off the water and again Tulsa smashed one to the ground 50 yards out in the pasture.  I see him wingover and go to the ground, and I figured we had not gotten our 30th duck.  As luck would have it though, I see a duck hightailing it out of there when I was around 20 yards away from where I saw the falcon go down.  The hybrid must have lost this duck in the tall grass, something that hasn't happen since the beginning of the season.  So number 30 would have to come another day.  

Sunday Daniel came up and we took another go at the season ender.  High winds made conditions less than ideal but we went anyway.  Flight one wasn't the best setup and the couple of Gadwalls on the pond flushed into the wind with the falcon out of position.  I called him down and we went to look for another flight.  Flight two wasn't much better.  The falcon appeared to be gassed from first flight and life hardened late season ducks definitely were using the wind to their advantage.  Eventually one did make a mistake and got blasted down into the water.  The impact also brought the falcon into the pond, empty footed.  I picked up the soaking wet Tulsa and watched the duck slip under the water with his head just barely sticking out.  After getting the falcon secure I went to look for the injured duck and found him laying in the shallows.  As I went to pick him up, the duck came to his senses and flew across the pond.  I guess he just had his bell rung and needed a minute to get his senses back.  

And thus day 2 of attempting to end the season came to a close empty handed.

Day 3 the windy conditions finally subsided and I met up with Scott and some of his family members for what would hopefully be the last fight of the season.  With about a 1/2 hour of daylight left, Tulsa left the fist and mounted over a small pond filled with about a dozen Gadwalls,  possibly the perfect falconry duck quarry.  Beautifully back lit in the evening sky, the falcon folded up on the flushed ducks, singled out one, and clipped it, sending it toppling end over end into the prairie grass.  A quick wingover and it was done.  After a slow and frustrating start, this bird really turned the corner about halfway through the season.  

I didn't get out to hawk Prairie Chickens as I had hoped this year, but I did get this falcon well on his way to being a consistent gamehawk, something that I wasn't sure would ever happen at the end of last season.  This afternoon I'll finish getting the mews cleaned out and he'll be able to settle into his summer digs.  Let the molting begin......

Scott's sister, brother, myself, and Tulsa w/duck

-RVZ