Falconry

What is it that makes each bird of prey truly fascinating? To me there is no simple answer to such a question, mainly because I have loved and been obsessed by these magnificent, and delicate creatures since the age of eleven. The reason being, I have owned one for many years; a beautiful Barn Owl called Charlie to whom I have cared for and flown since she was 12 weeks old. My mother therefore blames me for our family owning, and caring, for a grand total of four birds of prey including: a Bengal Eagle Owl, a Tawny Owl, a Barn Owl, and finally a Harris Hawk. Although these creatures appear quite similar, in truth they are extremely different in size and appearance as over the years each has adapted to a different environment.
As a result of their diversity, we feed our birds a variety of different foods ranging from rodents such as, 1 day dead old rats and mice, through to rabbits and different types of small birds that have been caught by the Hawk. We freeze and defrost each meal when needed, and as the birds only eat once a day we are able to keep them in an environment that is as close to their natural habitat as possible.
In Latin the Barn Owl is known as “Tyoto Abala”, and all other species are named differently due to their individual taxonomy. However, all birds of prey share some common anatomical traits; such as the structure of their skeletons, which incidentally is completely different to a mammal skeleton, in that it is designed both to walk as well as to fly. In addition, most bones in a bird’s skeleton are hollow in order to reduce the bird’s weight, and to facilitate flight. To further aid flight, their bodies contain small air sac’s called aircells: these are distributed around the bird’s body and help to increase buoyancy throughout flight, by capturing tiny pockets of air when the bird respires. Unfortunately, the bird’s aircells can become affected if the bird develops a disease called Aspergillosis, which can in turn hinder the bird’s ability to fly. Another fascinating fact about the Barn Owl is that it is able to rotate its head around its neck up to nearly 270 degrees. It is this extremely flexible neck that allows this bird of prey to preen its feathers, whilst also providing a way for it to feed as they are unable to use their wings to lift food to their mouths. Owls feathers are coated with a waxy, oily layer which enables them to stay dry (it acts as a waterproofing), as well as being specially adapted in order to make the owl as silent as possible during flight which is essential for catching prey. Finally, the Barn Owl has sharp talons (which I have a first hand experience of), that are used to kill its prey, and the sharp beak is designed to tear its food into more manageable chunks.

In understanding the anatomy of the bird we are able to design a way of caring for the owls, allowing them to be kept in a safe and secure environment that is also as close to their natural habitat as possible. Therefore our aviaries are different sizes, (which suit the sizes of each individual bird) with different types of surfaces ranging from concrete and stones, through to grass and plants. In addition to adapting the birds’ living space we are also required to keep a constant record of each bird’s weight, this is due to the fact that it helps us to decide how much food to feed them throughout the year. A sudden drop in a bird’s weight can act as a main indicator to a decrease in the bird’s health, and so by keeping a record of each bird’s weight, we can pinpoint the time at which the bird developed illness, as well as allowing us to calculate the bird’s best flying weight. The flying weight is essential when taking the Hawk hunting, as overweight birds would sit in a tree rather than hunting, because it wasn’t hungry.
Whilst training a Hawk to hunt, we use perches that are designed as points of contact in which the bird flies to and from the fist for small quantities of food. As the birds starts to get the hang of this routine we attach the meat to a ‘lure’ (normally in the shape of a rabbit), which trains the hawk to watch for this animal as it associates it with food. After the bird has mastered this stage of the training we can take it off the ‘creance’ (which is a long section of line attached to both bird and falconer), and start hunting. Believe me when I say that this stage of the training is the most frustrating, but also the most rewarding, and from first hand experience I know that a catch can make or break a day of marching through a wet field on a cold day during the dark winter months.

Alex Hallam.