Well . . . at least the observers up at Hawk Ridge in Duluth have started their fall migration raptor count, as of yesterday, August 15. Here is the link:
Hawk Count
And look . . . one Red Tailed Hawk, two Kestrels, and two Merlins for the first day!
I'll be following this site for the next few months, as we gear up to get out there and start trapping for the next falconry season.
Eton Mess
1 hour ago
Finished reading the backlogs at Ladyhawker (or most of them- the month-archive setup invited me to misclick when I started reading). Was quite interested in the one post where your hawk (Abby, I think it was) crabbed with another [yay, new term in my vocabulary!}. That was cool.
ReplyDelete(P.S.: You didn't bore me.)
I'm currently researching becoming a falconer myself, since I can't take the written exam for two years due to the age limit. As of right now I've scanned through The Modern Apprentice, skimmed The Austringer's do-it-yourself articles, and made a list of equipment and etc. suppliers- any other suggestions?
Yes, I'm twelve years old (go me).
ReplyDeleteI don't really have much access to falconry books (arg) and my mom is rather against falconry due to her ideas that the bird is caught and kept-for-life without exception, and that they are constantly hooded until they're let free to hunt (which she believes is cruel). I was thinking I could tell her why that really happens during the vacation we just got back from (visiting a friend in northern part of Minnesota [hey, I live here too!]), but I didn't really get a good chance to do it since we were either occupied with my dog (a nice black Labrador named Fang) or she was putting up wallpaper in Lives-Up-North-Friend's bathroom. Maybe I can talk to her about it in a couple of weeks when we go back up to the friend's place to help out with a party. Hmm.
(Yes, I am familiar with the term 'codger'. Awesome that it originated with falconry.)
Thanks for the new school years good-luck wishes (eep- just a couple weeks left of vacation!), and good luck trapping if you go for some early kestrels (I saw a red-tail hawk on a billboard just today, and what was either a Goshawk or a Peregrine in the olive tree in my yard a week ago or so.)
(Postscript: do you think there'd still be ticks in the marsh behind my house [which has many rabbits and several pheasant, want to go tramping around in there], or should I wait until November when there's some snow on the ground so my dog and I can go walking around, looking for signs of game?)
I think a reply to the above post would be an excellent blog entry. Thank you Motaki!
ReplyDelete