Falconry Displays

Archive for April, 2026

The weather has been almost perfect for the past few days – warm and spring like – but with a cold breeze from the north in the shade. We had a couple of fully fledged young robins in the garden still being being fed by their parents. On seeing them you really realise far how Spring has already progressed.

Below are some photographs of Sprite our peregrine tiercel – sitting out on the lawn – in the sun -well I cleaned out his weathering. Just as I put him out a wild peregrine flew overhead – which was exciting and both falcons including my lanneret ‘Frank’ started calling to him. You can see Sprite has a full crop after just being flown.

He is lofted for much of the year but the weathering is always there – if needed – for when I need to rest or deep clean the loft.

This is why in my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ I present a dual purpose structure called the ‘weathering loft’ to give the falconer options of management without needing to have two structures – which would mean extra cost, space for siting them and the fact that one or other structure will not be in use at any one time. So a two in one structure makes a lot of sense.

I have used the standard weathering loft which is presented in the book – with plans to follow, material with quantities – here for many years for a range of birds including the rehab of a wild buzzard. After six weeks of rest and recovery in the loft it was released in perfect feather condition – which is testament to the loft design.

It is a good solution for many of the husbandry issues that crop up in modern day bird of prey management.

The book can be obtained from Amazon, Coch y Bonddu books, Waterstones and many other outlets.

Well we are practically in mid April – best time of the year. Things are happening so fast in the countryside. We have seen a number of swallows the first group of 3 passed through on the 6th of April heading northwest – I think as I recall I may have seen a single swallow or sand martin  pass through a couple of days earlier.

Our swallows where I fly the birds are also back – great to see them hawking insects over the sports ground – but it is still quite cold – slightly different from Africa! It looks like our buzzards are back – the nest has new green material added and I saw an adult bird pitch into a tree. They are very quiet when nesting and one can never be quite certain they are there until you see nearly full grown youngsters about to fledge looking down.

I saw saw a lovely male peregrine hunting and Frank my lanneret started calling to him – he has a touch of breeding condition on him.  The male peregrine or  tiercel was hunting for the female peregrine known as the falcon who would now be on or near the nest depending on whether she had finished laying her clutch and started to brood. I also saw a lovely male Sparrowhawk carrying a kill into a copse – no doubt as a gift to the female – they tend to lay in the first week of May – so later.

So plenty has been happening. I have re-read my own book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ and I am really proud of it and thank Choir Press who published the book and everybody who helped to get it out. I think I may have short changed myself on the sections on the development of falcon and hawks. They are more than just comments but extensive notes. But there you go. There would be a couple of things I would add to the book if I were ever to revise it – maybe sometime in the future.

Like all country sports including fishing we need more young people to get involved – which is our future. We all agree with that and great benefit of it for well being and mental health. Things tend to come and go and then circle back – like a falcon – so with restriction on social media coming for young people they may venture out go fishing or fly a bird. It is up to government not to legislate this activities by stealth out of existence.

Anyway here are a few pictures of Spring. Wild Garlic just coming out in the shade by the brook, a bunch of Cowslips under a gate and stock just out. Wonderful!

The Days are longer which is wonderful though at this time of year they often seem to be cold. On occasion you have that warm sun which is so nice and is foretaste of what is to come.

We took the on loan sports car out top Pershore Abbey a couple of weeks ago, The weather was fab and having the car added so much to the outing and the Abbey itself is in the portfolio of the architect’s company my wife works for – so she was keen to see it. In fact several years ago we attended the Medieval fayre in Pershore in the parkland adjacent to the Abbey – we provided the falconry display. The centre of the town is lovely with the Abbey in the middle and with free parking on a Sunday you can’t go wrong.

What made it even better were the wild peregrines nesting on the Abbey on a nesting platform provided by the Abbey. Apparently in a previous tear they had nested in a gutter with disastrous results when it rained. The female had just laid her first egg and both parents spent the afternoon calling to each other. The female or falcon sitting high up on the building above the nest platform and the male or tiercel was sitting right at the top of an adjacent fir tree. They are not great tree sitters as a whole preferring ledges on cliffs or in this case a building. The tiercel took off and disappeared we assumed to go hunting but when we got back – after our walk around the park – he had returned. It was great to see – a real privilege in fact. They have a camera on the falcons with their own you tube channel. Below is  picture of the Abbey with the tree with the tiercel sitting on top.

The last few days Spring has really arrived – although not seen a swallow yet – but the buzzards are displaying to each other and I saw a great dipping display flight by the male while the female sat in a tree. Once he had done enough he joined her in the tree and they mated immediately. This was down at the flying field and on the same day I took a picture of Frank our lanneret on the lure.

He is flying really well. I think he looks really smart. He is also in breeding condition at this times of year as are all birds flown in high condition. Which brings me onto my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ which is still riding high in the Amazon charts. Awesome books sells it for under £26 but I have not have gone through the process of buying the book I do not know if there are any catches – so I cannot recommend it but it is worth looking at.

Here is another picture of the hedgerows in blossom. I thought from a distance the farmer had put sheep in the field. These are lovely old hedgerows and really beautiful. A great year for blossom.