We're close

Weight management is the key to successfully hunting with any raptor. Some people like the challenge in maintaining a more difficult to manage bird. I don't, as a general rule.

I want my falconry to be fun and hassle free.

For me, harris hawks fit the bill.

Both my birds, at weight, are easy to get along with and biddable. They come to the whistle, every time - but they also come to the call of their name. They roam ahead early in the hunt, and leapfrog over one another as they check out new terrain.

One quests forward, while the other hangs back and watches for movement. They know the game, and they are experts at playing it.

Over the last month I have been slowly cutting the amount of food that they receive by about a quarter. It takes about two mice a day for the birds to maintain their wight as the nights begin to cool (hawks loose more weight in lower temperatures). So I feed them two mice one day, one the next, and they slowly drop the weight.

Tess is about there.

At 940 grams, she would go and hunt right now. By the end of last season, she was hunting around 960 and performing impeccably. But squirrel season still doesn't open for about a month, so if I am going to hunt, I'll be hunting birds.

Most likely out the car window.

To do that, I need her just a little bit lower. She should be ready early next week.

It's time to start clearing the calender.

To the Fist

While Gonzo continues to be flighty, snacking at the food on the glove without landing, Tess has come right down, landed, and claimed the food offered to her. I can now start weighing her and bringing her weight down to be ready for hunting.

Harris - hatching to hunting

Intro to Harris Hawks

If you are unfamiliar with harris hawks - this short video is a good primer.

Getting the birds out

I always have tons of projects going on and with trapping season here, and hunting season right around the corner, I'm all of a sudden rushing to get things done.

I got out the new scale and attached an old perch to it.

I've built a new hawk box. It is bigger than some of my old ones, and only houses one bird. I already have a double, and my triple needs work as well.

My son helped with the painting some. He is always great when it comes to helping around the house.



I took the birds out and checked on Gonzo's leg. It seems to have healed very well. Actually, Without looking too close, you can't even see a scar.

Then I brought up Tess and took and perched her next to where we were working. Her weight is still way high 1130 grams, so I will need to do some cutting. But she was surprisingly responsive. You have to love harris' hawks, they are the most biddable of birds. Even after not being handled all summer long (March to now, 7 months) Tess came down to the fist overweight and acted as if she'd been there all along.

Seperation Anxiety

I've closed the doors. My mating season (actually my hawks mating season) is officially over. I've closed the door to their adjoining cages and have begun to feed them separately.


In a way, it is kind of exciting. The molt is about over, just a few more tail feathers to finish growing then we can begin cutting weight. I hope in the coming weeks to start socializing the dog with the hawks as I slowly bring their wight down to an acceptable level.

By the middle/ end of August Gonzo and Tess could be car hawking, and soon after, squirrel season begins.

So really, this is not the end of mating season, it is the beginning of the beginning of falconry season.
Things will probably be in a lull here for a bit, but it'll be picking up again soon.

Time to call it a season

Well - apparently Tess and Gonzo are not feeling the love. We are halfway through the summer, and even if they decided to feel the magic now, the chicks would be born pretty late in the hunting season. So I'm calling it quits for this year.

I cannot tell you how disappointed that I am, but there is always next year. There are plenty of good breeders out there that are selling their hawks if you are looking for one. I love my harris', they are great birds.

I don't know that many breeders personally, but there are a few that I can recommend.

Tess comes from Wes Collins project. She is a great calm bird, and I believe as of this writing he had a few males left. Wes is out in Texas, but he will ship.

American Falconer is a project on the east coast in South Carolina. I flown my birds with some of these birds and they preformed spectacularly, and they are fairly large. You can read about some of his birds in a previous post. Or here.

Gonzo came to me by way of Dave Mancini's breeding project. His birds were going to someone else for breeding and a quick check of his website shows that it has not been updated in a long time. The emails and numbers may be valid though. I don't know. If anyone can help out with the status of Mancini's birds, I would appreciate it.

Gonzo is a great bird that has taken all kind of game. He is a good medium sized male that will preform whatever is asked of him.

Of course the Coulsons are breeding their birds, and there are a bunch of other breeders as you work your way west. Personally, I like to go out a nd see where the birds are coming from. But I realize that it is not always possible to do that. best luck if you are searching.

Don't forget - You must be a licensed falconer to purchase or house any bird of prey int the Untied States.

It's a Bird Eat Bird World

Photo by Misty Bowers/Special to the Reporter-News
Rocky the Harris hawk is being used to rid the Howard Payne University campus of pesky birds.

It seems that more and more falconers out there are finding work using their birds and their falconry skills.

It may very well be a dog-eat-dog world out there, but at Howard Payne University this week, it was a bird-eat-bird world as hawks were released to thin the flocks upon flocks of grackles roosting in trees, littering sidewalks and just being a general nuisance.

Jack Brady, of Got Birds?, a bird abatement company from Stephenville, brought two Harris's hawks -- Rocky and Woody -- and one Cooper's hawk -- Morticia -- to the HPU campus Thursday night to do what they do best: hunt other animals.

So your falconers out there looking for something to do read the rest here. Get your birds out night hawking, and who knows where it will take you.

Wimbledon

Rufus the resident Harris Hawk keeps the courts pigeon free on Day Seven of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on June 29, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images)

This is from here.

Hazel the Harris Hawk goes on vermin patrol

Harris Hawks in the news. The London Evening Standard did a little fluff piece on Hazel. It was short but amusing.

ONE of London's oldest street markets is being patrolled by a trained hawk in an attempt to rid it of pigeons.

Islington council chiefs came up with the idea after traders and customers complained about the birds, commonly regarded as vermin, plaguing the area around Whitecross Street.

They were attracted from their nests in nearby roads by the thriving food market - held on Thursdays and Fridays. Hazel the Harris hawk, pictured with handler Karl Robertson, is now brought in twice a week and supervised by a handler.

Sounds like the perfect job to me. There is a bit more if you want to read it here.

Great Argument

I found this blog last night. The author puts forth a nice argument for harris hawks.

There are two types of falconers in this world; those that love Harris Hawks, and those that don’t.

If everyone loved the same things, if everyone agreed on everything and thought the same the world would be a less colourful and interesting place, so this surely can only be a good thing.

Since the first Harris Hawks were introduced into the falconry circle just a few decades ago this species really has taken the world by storm, shouldering aside the Goshawk and the American Redtail to make a large space for itself in both Irish and world falconry. It is by a long stretch the most commonly flown raptor today. People that could not otherwise have the time to put into a daily hawking regime can now have a bird that can fit into their lives; with an hour spare here and there and a morning out at the weekend People that do not have the time to train and manage the old traditionals like Goshawks and Merlins can now classify themselves as falconers and enjoy their time doing it.

To read the rest, see it at Woodlands Falconry.

Why Harris' Hawks?

Some people like English Pointers, some Deutch Drathaars, spaniels, dachshunds, beagles, terriers. They are all hunting dogs, and each one has their place. I'm not going to take sides in the debate over which dogs are better at pointing, flushing, retrieving. Honestly, I don't know enough about them, but I do know, that like hawks, some dogs are specialists, while others are more versatile.


Does a pointing lab point as as well as an English pointer, most people would say no. Does a weimeraner retrieve as well as a golden? Probably not, though they can and will retrieve. A Shitz-zu will warm your lap better than a rottweiler (though the rottie will certainly try).

Hawks are the same. People will debate this, some will say I'm wrong for this reason or that, but every raptor - be it hawk, falcon, or accipitor - has its strengths.

falcons, of course, excel at speed from the air. Their focus tends to be on birds. Do some people hunt rabbits in the desert with falcons, sure they do, but they tend to be the minority. big falcons hunt big birds, little falcons - little birds.

Hawks, your red tail, ferrengus, European buzzard, they hunt fur. Show them a squirrel or rabbit and the chase is on. There are people who hunt duck, or geese, with them - but they are the minority. These birds are bigger,more lumbering. They can crash through briars, and rip a squirrel from the side of the tree.


Then there are your accipiters. They can't be beat in the initial mad dash at prey. Some take birds, others take rabbit, but their strength is their speed.


But why Harris', why a parabuteo? I have flown Red tails, I have some experience with falcons, but harris' can do it all. They are truly a versatile bird who can do almost everything with a calm accepting manner.

My birds have taken prey as big as a goose, and as small as a mouse. They tackle marsh rabbits with ease, and gang up on even the biggest squirrel.

Gonzo will take a crow out of the car window as easily as he takes a sparrow or starling.

People hunt everything with their Harris hawks, pheasant, quail, rabbits, jacks, prairie dogs, cotton rats, ducks, geese, squirrel.

You can hunt them from trees, your fist, T-pole, even a soar.

But most importantly - they readily hunt together. Unlike other hawks, they coordinate. When yo hunt them together they seem to understand what the other is doing, they gang up and can be twice as deadly. If you get three or four together, the fun is amazing. Why harris' hawks. They do it all, and they do it easily. I don't fight with my hawks and they come when I call their names. They follow close, they hunt with eachother, and they hunt with me. They are the most versatile of birds.

What now?

So here I am, my squirrel season over, the Harris' gorging themselves on squirrel and rabbit all day, and my blog is called Harris' Hawk blog. What do I write about?

I have built a nest for Tess, and have provided sticks and twigs so that the birds can supplement the structure that is already there.


Well, soon, I transfer the birds onto my propagation permit, open the door that connects the cages and hope for the "magic" to begin.

In the meantime, I'm going to start focusing more on Ulrich. I had him flying free outside today. He was a little hesitant, but I think that his weight is a tad high. I won't drop it until I check my scale, as I don't think that it is accurate.

A Lillington Afternoon

We had McDonalds for lunch. I actually really like McDonalds. We talked hawks and terrain. We discussed kills, and hunts. Then we organized our afternoon.

A bunch of us headed off to a farm on the outskirts of town. There was a lake and a sloping green lawn with a log cabin in the distance. A line of trees stood sentry along the edge of the property, and we could hunt from the line of trees, back.

There were three of us there, all with Harris' hawks, we decided, "what the heck," and we put all four of them up together.

There was my two birds, Pee-Wee the tiercel, and Rudy (Chip's first year tiercel, who had never hunted squirrels). It started out as chaos. Rudy and Pee-Wee kept crabbing with one another, and Gonzo flew off towards the house. The briars were thick, the birds were fighting, and we decided the best thing to do was to get some game moving to keep their interest.

It didn't take long. We had squirrels running every which way. The hawks squirted in all directions. Every one yelled "ho, ho" and leapt after their birds. We were running, yelling, and tripping through the thick underbrush. I couldn't catch my breath as I was laughing so hard. It took a while but the birds finally started coordinating their efforts and focused their energy on between one and three squirrels in a single giant pine.

The hawks circled from branch to branch, climbing the tree. Rudy did great. He was the playmaker, moving around the tree, and getting the squirrels to move from the topmost branches. The hawks chased, the squirrels ran, but one by one the rodents were able to disappear, across the forest floor, with hawks diving from the air, and into the metal roof of the garden shed.

We moved on, finding more squirrels. some would move, some wouldn't, but the tangles were thick, the ground cover heavy.




It was hard going, but the hawks finally connected, three piling on all at once. We dispatched the squirrel.

The head count wasn't great on the day. We had a lot of new elements, and it was hard keeping up with four birds at once. But man, it was a blast.

Bust

It was the perfect day for hunting. The temps were in the twenties and the wind was still. The weather over the last week has been cold, wet, and windy so seeing the sun today was a nice change.

The hawks' weights were good, though Gonzo was on the high side at 670 grams. I usually hunt him around 650.

Tess was right on.

I got permission this year to hunt on a tract of land in Nags Head that I have been wanting to hunt for ten years, but I have never been able too. The terrain is great, mixed hardwoods, with oak, pine, and hickory. Some old growth maritime forest with areas that had been cleared in the last twenty years mixed in. There was a bunch of squirrel sign, stripped pine cones, middens, and squirrel nests up in the trees.

At the base of the ridges that run through the woods are small ponds and vernal pools that are home to lots of animals in the summer; duck, otter, turtles, but they were freezing over today.

The sun shone in spears through the pines.

We hunted.

There were no squirrels.

None

Nada

Zip

I walked for over two hours (it was gorgeous), without seeing a single glimpse of a squirrel. The hawks did dive at something, once, over a hill ,where I couldn't see, but that was it.

I made it back to the truck somewhat crestfallen.

We tried another spot. This one is tried and true. I hadn't been there in a few weeks, but here I can normally walk out with doubles, or at least a single.

Nothing

Nada

Zip

The hawks played great. We spent some time talking to a group of mountian bikers at the end of the hunt. They'd heard the bells as they were riding. The hawks sat low on the branches as we talked giving everyone a good view. They don't get spooked easily. Good birds.

We'll try again on Monday.

I love this shot

This pic was taken by John Maxwell, who tagged along with us on a hunting trip.

Gonzo & the Squirrel

Gonzo loves squirrels. I brought Tess into the mix because I couldn't keep Gonzo off of them, and Tess' feet can handle a squirrel bite better than Gonzo's would be able to. Don't get me wrong, both of the birds get bites when we hunt, but it is usually Tess that is the one that finishes the deal.

It is cool to watch them coordinate.

We went out today to a spot I've only hunted once this season. We chased a bunny from thick cover to thick cover right off the bat, but soon lost it. The rabbit was heading for the park where there was a family eating with their dog and small children and I didn't want to have to stop to answer questions today. I called them off the rabbit and moved into the trees.

It didn't take long before we had a squirrel moving through the scrub pine. Gonzo keeps higher in the trees, moving from pine top to pine top, while the heavier Tess waits a bit lowerin the branches, looking for the squirrel to bail out.

You learn to respect squirrels. They are fast, tough, and smart. This one knew exactly what he was doing. He menuevered from one side of the trunk to the other, keeping the horizontal branches between himself and both birds. When he had them both on the opposite side of the tree, he would leap to the next tree and the whole thing would start again. At one point, Tess was able to snatch him off the side of the trunk, only to get hung up in some branches. Her feet pistoned up and down, trying to find purchase, but the squirrel parried her talons with his own razor teeth. Tess dropped him and he fell to the ground, Gonzo nailing the spot where he landed a second too late.

Before either bird could extricate themselves, the squirrel spiraled up an other tree trunk and disappeared into a hole in a tree.

We moved on.

Our second squirrel was very much like the first. Tess would keep the squirrel high in the tree, and Gonzo would push him to the ends of the branches, where he could only leap into Tess' claws, or bail out to the ground, only to be hit by twin feathered missles.

The battle raged from treetop to treetop. Pine to oak to beech. Gonzo kept pushing and finally the squirrel couldn't take the pressure and bailed for the ground. Tess saw her chance and leapt, Gonzo right behind.

As usual, Tess got this one. She is generally the one who binds to the quarry, but Gonzo works it hard and they both get some reward for their efforts.

The team works just like I wanted them too.

I traded Tess off the squirrel and gave Gonzo some quality footing time. We took some pictures and called it a day at one.