I hope you enjoy this short BBC video of a eagle in flight with a camera attached. Be sure to click the HQ button if you have a good internet connection for high quality it works a treat. ]]> http://www.falconryworld.com/birds-eye-view.html/feed http://www.falconryworld.com/birds-eye-view.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FalconryWorld/~3/Pqt4pp1oB3M/jess-my-pointer-has-pups.html http://www.falconryworld.com/jess-my-pointer-has-pups.html#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 14:04:24 +0000 Ste http://www.falconryworld.com/?p=277

Jess one of my star english pointers is about to have pups. Not only that she was mated with Simon Highams dog which is as pure an Embercombe line as you can get. The famous Embercombe line was created by falconer Steve Franks who is famous for his longwings but even more so his pointers that have kept longwing falconers in game for some decades now. Jess amd Amber my other pointer work on Wemmergill moor counting grouse and this year I took Simon’s dog up with me. He was really good if not alittle over anxious but staedy as a rock on point with both of mine. The pups will be available in late July and will mean Zoe can’t come to the falconry festival due to puppy sitting duties. If anyone is intersted in a pup please let me know. Hope you enjoy the pictures of her at work.

Here are two fantastic pictures taken of a merlin in mid stoop wearing a Marshall radio Micro transmitter. The pictures really allow you to freeze the moment and examine the bird in detail whilst you can clearly see the falcon is at speed, but also how well the micro just seems to fit and un-hinder the bird in flight. How you like them

The other day I was asked a question regarding the best batteries to use in Marshall transmitters. There’s a few points to remember when buying and using battery transmitters, and I thought it might be useful to post my reply here.

When using a battery for a falconry transmitter, always take the old battery out and leave it a minute before putting in a new one. Alternatively, place a battery in the wrong way around to reset the falconry transmitter memory. This procedure causes no harm, and has to be done on all Marhsall Radio Powermax transmitters as a matter of course due to the nature that some power is still present in the transmitter after a battery has been taken out.

If you check the voltage on a RT+ battery, from many manufactures you’ll find that if you put a meter over them they are 3.0v dead on. However, higher end batteries such as Duracell will be 3.35v or more. This does no harm to a transmitter and these higher grade batteries also give power for longer at any voltage. The Marshall transmitter has three warning systems.

1) First is a timer “The Apollo 13″ mode which will make the length of the pulse shorter and the time between each pulse you hear longer after a transmitter has been left on for over 24hrs. The transmitter presumes that if it’s not been turned off the bird is lost and so will save energy to maximise battery life.

2)The double bleep is set to trigger at a certain voltage when the transmitter is under load and drops below a certain voltage. A battery may show on a meter as being 3v however under load i.e. giving out a radio wave the battery will drop to below 2.5v which will cause the transmitter to give a double bleep to warn you to change the transmitter. The Marshall transmitters do not lose strength of signal like most transmitters as the voltage goes down due to some rather clever jiggery pokery that Dave Marshall worked out. Most transmitters will give a weaker and weaker signal like a dimming torch as the battery drains. Marshall transmitters do not do that.

3)The magnet takes no more power up to use. However, a safety feature is that your transmitter won’t turn on or off using the magnet if the battery is low, and the battery should be changed.

Marshall sell all batteries as near cost as possible, the best transmitters in the world is no use if its engine (the battery) is ****. So all batteries on the Marshall web site are well below rrp.

I know in the past falconers had to pay a lot for batteries from certain retailers and it was a real gripe of mine as well. However, Marshall now give away a battery with every transmitter sold and sell them as cheap as possible to encourage falconers to use quality batteries.

One more thing because I’ve done myself in the past, keep all batteries in a protective container individually. If two batteries come into contact with another they will short out and kill the battery. And don’t keep them in with other metal objects like one fella who wondered why his batteries were dead after he took them out of the plastic pack and put them altogether with his spent rim fire cases.

One for micro transmitter users, the battery they should use is the 1225 and not the 1220. The 1220 fits but doesn’t last as long and is the same price as the slightly larger 1225.

I came across a story yesterday on the World Hum travel blog about falconry being used at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the only commercial airport in the US to use falconry as a way to control wild bird population as a means to reduce bird strike on planes.

With so much in the news lately about bird strikes and aeroplanes, I wondered why this airport is seemingly the only one to use falconry as a way to prevent bird strikes. Is it due to native raptors not being able to be used for commercial purposes? Which seems crazy since it can help save lives. Or maybe it’s down to the location; Kennedy Airport is right beside Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, nearly 10,000 acres in size and home to oystercatchers, plovers, whimbrels, ibises, willets and more. All which could mean disaster for the aeroplanes that are about to launch so an exception is made.

The report states that using falconry for this kind of problem works wonders, “It’s an effective way to deal with the bird issue, for the simple reason that while birds can get used to noise, they never habituate to having a natural predator in the area.”

The falcons they use are all bred and raised in captivity and are trained not to hunt or kill any of the pest birds, just to scare them away. The company also use a CD recording. Read the full report on the World Hum site.

It’s that time of year when loved ones everywhere start booking restaurants and weekends away, no, I’m not talking about the end of the season (that’s a sad time for everyone) but Valentine’s day, and what better way to celebrate the day than receiving some much needed falconry equipment.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want little in the way of new aftershave or novelty gifts, so my advice is to start giving out the hints for the falconry equipment that you really want now.

I always feel it’s a grave mistake for falconers not to give out detailed instructions of exactly what falconry equipment they need, because it’s so confusing for a none falconer. Look at the falconer who asked for a mounting method for his bird and got something altogether different (I would explain more but there might be children reading.) If only he’d taken the time to explain, he wouldn’t have ended the season not being able to sit down.

Falconers who don’t ask, don’t get. They end up receiving useless presents when they could be getting the essential falconry equipment that would really brighten up their day. The trick is to make sure that your loved one knows exactly what to buy you. So, with that in mind, here’s my advice for how to drop hints to your loved one to ensure you get the falconry equipment you deserve.

Moan
Start talking about how useless your glove/hood/perch/box is at the moment and how much of a happier person you’d be if you had a new one. I find a lot of huffing, sighing and talk of ‘If only I had so and so falconry equipment, my life would be complete’ works wonders.

Promise
Discuss openly about how if you had brand new falconry telemetry/receiver/transmitters for next season you’d be home a lot more because locating your bird wouldn’t be an issue. Heck, in fact, you could even go so far as to say that they wouldn’t even know you were a falconer.

Make it easy
Leave the computer permanently on-line at the ordering page with your shopping cart filled up and direct your loved one to the screen. Leave ‘falconry wish lists’ taped to the fridge and cupboard door with directions on where to buy from.

If all else fails, and your partner is still not cooperating in purchasing the much needed falconry equipment then buy it yourself, I mean, who do you really love more - falconry or the person you live with?
You can always justify this by sayings its a valentines present for your bird.

It’s not easy to do falconry hunting if you have a full time job. It’s very nearly impossible. With many birds moulting in the summer, and falconry hunting taking place in the winter months, the daylight is soon gone. If you are in a full time job, just when are you meant to do any falconry hunting? It’s a frustrating situation and one that I was very familiar with.

Fortunately, the employers that I have had the pleasure of working for have always been sympathetic (even if they didn’t want to be) with my falconry hunting and I was even lucky enough to have a job where my boss let me go out falconry hunting in my lunch hour (ex falconer himself). It was understood that if I was late, it was the birds fault and not mine. Sometimes I’d take a slip at a crow in the morning other times at dinner. This could lead to some fairly lengthy lunch times. I eventaully had to give up working for others five days a week, as life is just to short not to hunt with birds of prey, everyday.

However, if you really need to do some falconry hunting and are in a full time job, here’s five tips for getting the most out of the falconry hunting season.

1. Get permission on as much land as possible.
Having the right land is everything is falconry hunting. The quarry you peruse will soon work out your routine if you fly over the same piece of land to often. So try and get as much land as you can and near your work place or on route to work.

2. Think about available quarry.
And then, choose your bird accordingly. You need to realise that the quarry you have available to you will depend on what bird you can fly. Most people buy the bird and then think about what to hunt. It should be the other way around. Falconry is about hunting with a bird of prey nothing else. Keeping an owl or a falcon is not falconry. Find what you have to hunt i.e. crows, get a pere/saker rabbits buy a Harris or later when you have more experience get a Goshawk. Buy the right hawk or falcon for the job.

3. Discuss flexible working
It may sound ludicrous at first, but you really won’t know unless you ask. Talk to your employer about longer lunch breaks, flexible hours and see if you can fit in falconry hunting around the working day.

4.Change jobs
For those just coming into the sport this may sound extreme. However if your job won’t allow you to be a falconer then the only thing to do is to change jobs to something that will.

5. Start your own business.
When you’re the boss you’ll work many many hours. But they are hours that suit you. I’ve been known to get up before sun rise and ready to fly at first light with the falcon and then fly at last light with the Goshawk. The hours I miss out I make up by working into the night if necessary. Be warned if you have a family either make up for your many missing hours by taking your loved ones for meals out and holidays through the moult or face the fact that sooner or later you’ll be on your own. But then at least there’d be no one to moan about manning the bird in the house or dead chicks defrosting in the sink!!!

The title to this post about falconry telemetry begs an obvious answer.
Of course you should use falconry telemetry to locate your bird, to offer some kind of solace and reassurance against loss. However a great many people don’t use falconry telemetry, especially those that fly the most popular bird of prey in the UK, the Harris Hawk.
I myself flew for two years without telemetry.
I was a poor student at the time and falconry telemetry was a large investment into something I thought I could live without, I thought I could simply use magpies or crows to locate my bird.

Then, as I started to hunt more, I would lose my Harris Hawk through sloppy weight management (trying to fly the bird to heavy) and then finally on a shooting estate whilst on a field meet. The Harris Hawk, a large female, had killed and then hidden in some deep cover. Every time I called she kept still and I heard no bells until the end of the day at dusk. She flew up a tree with a full crop.
Lucky for me, I was an able climber and she stayed still as I climbed the tree and then had to make my way back down with one hand and holding a very heavy female Harris Hawk. I then did the next most stupid thing and bought a cheap falconry telemetry set. I won’t say the name but it was a 433mhz system and gave about as much range as a bell on a good day. The falconry telemetry set I had then was OK for a Harris Hawk, as long as I could keep up with the birds movement, but of course, I moved on from Harris Hawks and ventured into crow hawking.

I went from short slips to extreme slips and within a year of buying a cheap falconry telemetry set, I did my research and bought a reputable and established falconry telemetry system. This was like me saying “That’s it, I’m in this sport for the long haul”.

That was ten years ago.
Every year I dedicate more time to falconry like many of my peers around me. We have changed jobs, given up friends, family gatherings, purchased dogs and moved house and location all for falconry. Falconry telemetry is as essential as getting a bird, and in the big run of things to come if you keep with falconry, it’s a drop in the ocean.

So if your undecided if falconry is for you, take my advice.
Think of falconry telemetry as an essential tool. There is the debate that if Harris Hawks keep getting lost (and they are the most lost of all birds of prey) then they could be restricted in ownership. Using telemetry is for all within the sport of falconry, and of course the time you need it most is when you will make the most mistakes; at the the start.

If you’re thinking of buying a bird of prey, add a the cost of a falconry telemetry system like a Marshall Radio Telemetry set. Even if you do sell up, you’ll always sell a good quality system for good money, which is more than I can say for my cheap system that now collects dust in the garage. I am biased but ask around, you’ll find that many others have the same story.

Just click on one of the flags over to the right and after a few seconds, the whole site should be translated to that language.

So if English isn’t your primary language, this is for you. Or if you’re currently learning a new language, it’s a cool way to practice your reading skills.