Falconry Displays

Jarvis was the lanneret I bought to train for my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ presented in a diary format. I wanted the training journey to be an honest account ‘warts and all’ if you like. The book records how deeply frustrated I was at the end of his first season due to the endless poor weather.

As I said in my book that despite the frustration I was looking forward to flying him the following season after he had moulted. I am glad to report that he has done really well and his flying is excellent and still improving. He would have made an excellent demo bird. All the problems I had with him – the pick up from the lure and hooding have been ironed out.

This was achieved by I hope good technique, patience and repetition. Trying to get each stage right before moving on. And with his hooding using my own advice to be found in the book he is now on the whole ‘good to the hood’.

The construction of the ‘weathering loft’ that I describe in the book is quite topical because the issue of tethering birds in the zoo environment. It is to be phased out in 2 years time. To be replaced with large flying aviaries. This is where aviaries around or near the flying area are opened and the birds fly out – often colonial species – and do their thing. This has been done very successfully with kites, vultures and other birds of prey including owls. The last part of the display is where the birds return voluntarily to their aviaries to have the rest of their daily food ration. A lot of the display behaviour is habituated to the specific location.

As I have said with falconry birds who are active hunters – which the above are not – this is far more challenging. The loft design for these birds precludes public display of parent reared birds in flying condition. They will need to be brought to the flying area from lofts behind the scenes. As I have said in my book very clearly – not all parent reared birds can be lofted in flying condition. This is why tethering is used and has been used for millennia.

The only caveat to this would be the use of imprinted hawks and falcons which may be tame enough to go into structures more akin to aviaries than lofts.

It sounds like the law change will contain flexibility to allowing the training of birds and no doubt a period where a bird that is in flying condition can be tethered for a specific reason or time period but not around the clock in the zoo environment. Particularly if it is not being flown. As I say in my book the whole point of having a falcon or hawk is to fly it

This will likely mean the end of some types of the parent reared birds in the zoo or falconry centre environment.

Back to brighter times. Here a picture of Jarvis taken at the weekend. He is a cracking bird!