We have had some stunning weather this weekend and our birds thought so too!

In fact “Pilgrim” our male American Bald Eagle enjoyed it so much, he’s still up there??

Last seen heading west toward Callendar

We have been out until dusk yesterday and from 5am this morning and nothing……..

Had to nip back to base to feed babies and let the dogs out, so posting a quick blog in the hopes that if anyone here’s anything, perhaps you might contact our web site?

Fingers crossed xx

Mo, our 16 year old Saker sitting yet another clutch of babies.
She’s one happy mum, and junior looks pretty happy too.

Anonymous asked: Dear Adrian,

i have a euro kestral which am trying to enter on starlings i am have no luck could you please advise how i can acheive this?

Regards

Hi

The best advice i can offer is get a Sparrow hawk ;)

28th Feb saw the last day of our 2010/2011 hunting season.

It only seems like yesterday that we were getting the Harris’s out in hopeful expectation of the season to come.

Our season was poor i f i am honest, with a distinct lack of game on our own ground, and the adjacent 800 acres that we rent to hunt got busier than pica dilly circus on some days with random gun shooters, ferreter’s and all manner of character visiting the ground and making our job even harder.

We were floored early in the season when our best hunting Hawk (Maggie) broke her wing! then our second best bird (Caine) broke his leg on a pheasant! i haven’t ever had a season like it??

Luckily we had some young blood (Cobolt) to pick up the slack and even our old Display Harris Codene put in some notable kill’s to his credit.

The overall season tally was way below previous years and realization has finally dawned that we are going to have to put much more effort into the game management on our ground other than just putting pheasant feeders out.

I took the last hunt of the season out, and i am happy to report that several excellent chases were had and we brought something home for tea!

And so our working week changes totally, from hunting with guests around the farm every afternoon to entertaining a plethora of guest’s at base on one of our popular non-hunting sessions. Part of me see’s it as relief, and part yearns for another bright Autumn day with dog on point and bird on fist.

The Hunting birds will be starting their moult shortly, and taking their place on the weathering are several freshly moulted summer birds ready to wow the customers.

Now we move into the next big part of our year as spring brings our annual breeding season.

I am chatting up our imprinted falcon’s hourly just now, whether it’s to try to convince them to stand for insemination, win over nervous characters or simply to allow my self to become an object of pornographic desire for our male birds :) (well, you cant blame them ladies!)

So a brand new door open and it’s all to play for……….

Time for a story which might or might not have happened and illustrates how a lifetimes work can simply run down the gutter….

Rottler was a hybrid falcon, a cross between a desert Saker falcon and a Peregrine falcon. She started life being produced by a well known captive breeder, who for logistical reasons hand reared her. After an unscheduled visit to the breeder to see some other stock, the falconer felt sorry for and attracted toward this rather noisy, mentally challenged chick so decided to buy her!

The falconer ran a small rural business, etching a living from one of the worlds oldest profession, Falconry. Using the remnant’s of a bygone era, he en devoured to maintain a lively hood using knowledge accumulated over a life’s study. Gone were the halcyon days of providing sport for kings and gentry. The modern professional falconer needed several strings to his bow, including performing with his birds in the summer months and hunting with clients during the long hard Scottish Winter.

Rottler joined the existing team of falcons, Hawks, Eagles and Owl’s to commence her training.
Her formative years at the falconry were varied, from hunting rooks and crows with clients in the winter to performing at the odd display around the country in the summer months.
Thousands of hours went from turning this rather demented screaming devil, into a sleek and sophisticated hunting machine who could also wow crowds with her amazing displays of flight and power. At three years of age she laid her first egg, and to encourage natural behavior the falconer swapped her infertile eggs for ones donated by another falcon of which she hatched a reared 3 chicks. So Rottler now not only provided the falconer with income hunting in the winter, income displaying at shows in late summer and rearing surplus babies in the spring!

This was becoming one special bird…

Having now experienced ten’s of thousands of hours in the hunting field, show arena and breeding chamber she was literally worth her weight in gold!

At 6 years of age she started to demonstrate how clever she was to become as a hunter, and would exhibit all manner of tactic and intelligence when it came to catching her quarry.
She would fly along side moving cars in open area’s to get close to sitting flocks of Rooks, swinging off and over the vehicle at the last moment to reek terror..
Or swing off down wind to disappear for 20 minutes, only to return like a speck in the heavens above he quarry and deliver a 200mph cleaving stoop and Scythe her victim from the group.
But her final education made her the most special..

If she was released with no quarry present, she learned that we would be walking up Game such as Pheasant/ Partridge or flushing off a pond full of Duck (her favorite) and would quickly climb in tight circles above us

In her career she accounted for hundreds of head of Corvid’s, as well as all manner of game birds including Grouse, Black Grouse, Widgeon, Potchard, Pintail, Mallard, Teal, Pheasant,Grey Partridge, Red legged Partridge and one very unlucky Woodcock!

At 9 years old she had reached the peak of perfection in every way, and half a lifetimes care, attention and training had gone into this falconers “tool of the trade”.

A wonderful bird, with an interesting story which deserves a happy ending,

On a cold February morning a group of guests arrived at the falconers Mews, an aged cottage on a rundown old sporting estate. Having enjoyed the flight and interaction with several birds already it was decided to fly Rottler for last time that season before she went once more into her breeding chamber for the spring.

She left the falconers fist with purpose that day to climb into a tempestuous sky, she turned and track back toward the falconers lure at speeds which said, “I really want this”. A pass and miss, a pass and miss, before her wing beat changed and she seemed to drop a gear heading off in a long sloping stoop toward a distant wood?
A second later a single shotgun shot was heard??
By means of the radio transmitter she was wearing, the falconer followed her signal to the wood, it suggested it’s range was now only a matter of yards, when suddenly the signal moved out of the wood, and the falconer saw a person jogging quickly toward a 4wd vehicle parked across the field.

As he jumped in, started it up and drove away the transmitted signal followed him, and realization dawned on the falconer that this man had his bird!

The falconer called for a backup vehicle, and gave chase but too much time had been lost and the signal lost too.

The falconer searched and searched for his precious bird, with no luck until he spotted the Guy in the 4wd returning to the wood. He challenged the guy who said he had not seen the bird and had no idea what was being talked about???

That night, the falconer scoured the wood where the last signal from the bird had emanated and found distinct under covert wing feathers which belonged to his precious bird. It wasn’t the moulting season and the Falcon would not have dropped these feathers, they had come away from the host due to trauma……

By means of DNA materials already stored on the bird, it was possible to link these feathers with Rottler.

The next day the falconer was visited by the Hunter from the wood, who rather sheepishly admitted to shooting the bird and dumping her body in a river along the road.

What a sad end to a noble bird, what a waste of time and experience of such a prestigious falconry bird and how missed a lifelong friend?

A bird such as this one comes along once in a falconers lifetime, and really is one in a million.

The man who shot her turned out to be a new gamekeeper indirectly employed by the estate, it was obvious that reasonable compensation would not be coming forward from this guy, so a report of the incident was made to the police, and insurer’s informed.

The estate didn’t take kindly to being instigated in a highly illegal activity and turned on the falconer who had lived and worked there for almost 2 decades,despite their employee’s criminal activities. The result was the falconer was made to leave his home. The police made a muddled attempt at prosecution, and the guy got off on a technicality.

The moral of this story?

there isn’t one, some people just suck Donkey *@c$!

Anonymous asked: I fully undestand your position on dogs. I am trying to arange a 3 day trip camping etc with a friend and her 2 dogs and would love to visit your centre. Do you know of any kennels in the area that would accomadate 2 dogs for 3.5 hrs?

Jack Barbour
07856381494

07856

Hi

You might want to give these guys a try?

http://www.pawsboardingkennels.co.uk

Look forwards to meeting you.

Another busy week for the old team!

We’ve both knocked our pans out this week with early morning (5am) starts to attend a corporate job each day for the German car manufacturer Opel.
Set up in a small custom built cabin full of cheese!!! We are proud to give our international guest a flavor of falconry and a lot of fun….

Tom you are a star! keep up the good work and hopefully very soon we may have a new staff member (receptionist) to take a bit of the office work load off my shoulders and allow me to get back to what i think i do best, training the birds and taking customer days!

So the mayhem continues with more “Groupon” deals going out and a lot of new work coming in….

Interesting times!

Hood Making

I was recently given a new falcon to start to work on after loosing one of our very best display falcons.
Kris was the victim of an inexperienced lurer, a fence post and an total lack of respect for personal safety. All very sad after 9 year together but finally time to move on.

My new falcon is called “6”, and is a 3/4 Peregrine/ Gyr Hybrid.

He came to me very low in condition and it took me almost two weeks to start to put condition back onto him and over the last week or so he is now starting to fly for the hell of it once more with energy reserves to spare and a spring in is step!

Tuesday found him tearing after the local feral pigeon populations of the farm in an adrenalin fuel’d flight that lasted almost 5 minutes..

I have high hopes for this little chap and decided by Thursday that he needed a new hood (Leather cap used to blindfold) befitting of his hallowed place amongst the Phoenix Flying Falcons.

I have been making hoods since childhood ( I might add mostly badly!) but over the last 15 years or so they have started to improve. Stitching what equates to four separate pieces of leather together seamlessly is not as easy as you might think!
Then there is the shaping and boning (a process of polishing the hood on a hard block using a piece of smooth bone, resulting in a patent affect) attaching a Plume and braceing up, all of which takes time, patience and a bit of skill.

After 10 Hours hard graft, the result speak’s for itself, and now an amazing young falcon has a brand new fancy piece of headgear… Result.

Ensuring the school and birds are kept to the highest standards is a big part of the job, so today was mostly about cleaning and maintenance.

Despite there being a lot to get done, Tom and I managed to sneak out for an hour this afternoon with two of our hunting hawks (Caine and Cobalt) and a ferret. It seems like a lifetime since Cobalt and I were sharing so much time together as I took him through his training. He is now an integral part of the hunting team, doing a great job entertaining guests and chasing the local wildlife.

Cobalt has had a few pheasants so far this season, but had yet to bring down a rabbit. Despite a few opportunities, he has been a little hesitant. Well, you would be too - they’re twice the size of him and can fairly shift!

Well, today was to be the little man’s day. Having tried a few warrens, with no joy, we were starting to think the local rabbit population had moved on. Then the ferret bolted a rabbit right in front of the hawks. Both boys were off instantly - Cobalt bound; but was kicked off. You would have put money on the very experienced Caine taking the rabbit within seconds, but this one gave him the run-around, turning very quickly and making for cover. Unluckily for the bunny, Cobalt was back up and moments later bound to the rabbit with no hesitation.

Cobalt on his first rabbit

We were right there to share in the little man’s success. He has a bite to his foot for his trouble, which will be a lesson well learned - he won’t be making that mistake again. Of course, it’s all still a learning curve for young Cobalt, as it is for me.

To see the bird I trained taking his first rabbit was a fantastic moment - he’s growing up. I may have had a lump in my throat, but I don’t think Tom noticed! It’s amazing to think that this first season is coming to an end already - only a month to go for Cobalt. But there are many more rabbits out there and - based on today’s performance - a few more of them will be coming his way before then.

Ross

Having returned from a lovely holiday with my wife, the chaos continues….

A great relaxing week was what the doctor ordered and i have come back invigorated!

Its the magical time again, when the birds and bee’s are buzzing and some of our earlier breeding falcons are starting to come up to their windows and chat us up! (its great for the fragile ego..LOL)

On returning a friend came by with two new ferrets for us, both of which have turned out to be superb workers (so thanks Stu and brother of Stu) we will cherish them.

So a quick film of the new ferrets in action!