Falconry Displays

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.