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Building a relationship with a hawk is time consuming but very fulfilling. Hawks have their own ways of thinking, and the way one treats it is completely different from any ordinary animal pet.

It is not a sport for everyone: you regularly get muddy and cold and tired, and there are days when you just don't want to go out even when all other conditions are perfectly encouraging. Falconry wants those people who will go out because the bird needs to fly, it wants people who are stopped only by impending pneumonia, broken legs or death. Falconry is a lifestyle, an obsession, an addiction. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can "fit" falconry into an already busy life.

Two hours per day, average, is what falconry requires. The falconer's life bends to the hawk's needs, not the other way 'round. The foremost goal should be to make the bird into the best hunting hawk it can be. The hawk's purpose is not to prove you're cool and unique, that you have a hawk-brother spirit in your soul, or that you prefer to refer to yourself as Lord Maulkworth of Faulnwood Castle and you just know no Lord is complete without a prop faulcon. If you feel that way, hit your browser's "Back" button a few times and go away. If you want to learn about becoming a falconer, read on and welcome.

There are goals or stages that the apprentice falconer should attain. Barring disasters, if you cannot accomplish these things within the space of 2 years, you should consider another sport. These things are:

Trapping your hawk.


• Getting it to wear the hood.
  
• Learning weight control (for the hawk, not you, although the latter helps)
  
• Training it to catch game with you.
  
• Bringing it through the molt.

• A Rage for Falcons by Stephen Bodio. It is not a falconry manual, but rather the best book on what it's like to be a falconer. Reading him can teach the wannabe falconer much, as well as dispel a lot of tension for the experienced.
  
• North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks by Frank Beebe and Harold Webster. The modern falconer's bible these days. They have an answer for almost any question that you might ask.
  
• The Falconry Information Clearinghouse. Contains lists of vendors and lots of links to raptor- and falconry-related sites worldwide.

• Your State Department of Fish and Game. They can direct you to your local falconry club and tell you the legal requirements to obtain a falconry license. (In California, you must pass a test, have your mews and equipment inspected by F&G (or your sponsor), and obtain a sponsor who will teach you the details. The California Hawking Club's web page is listed below.)

Other Web Falconry Resources:

CALIFORNIA HAWKING CLUB

NAFA - North American Falconers' Association All US federal and state regulations can be found here

The alt.sport.falconry newsgroup. Get your falconry questions answered here.
Yahoo group Huntinghawks, for falconers who actually hunt with their birds. "Are you flyin' or cryin'?" "But lukily I got layed off"
On-Wing, the lady falconers group on Yahoo.
Northwood's, a Falconry Equipment Supplier
ABE Book Exchange: a cooperative of used booksellers worldwide.
Mexican Valley Falconers Group
Gerhard Lourens' Falconry webpage
Harrie Knol's Falconry portal


Other interesting links:
Wm. Spear's Gallery Mr. Spear makes enamel pins of birds, insects, and all sorts of funky things. Check out the stomachs.
Jean-Luc Ponty - best jazz violinist on the planet!

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I've been making hoods for as long as I've been in falconry, mostly out of necessity. About 3 or 4 years ago I got more serious about it, but there is so much I don't know that I hate to sell a hood for a hawk I have not seen. I was using a Dutch-molded Anglo-Indian pattern at that time. I have modified Nick Fox's pattern into an Anglo-Indian and am presently using that. I consider my hoods to be "pretty" hoods at a field hood price of $60. I've sold about 10 or 15, which is pretty cool.

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Photo: Squeaky left, Polya right, on jackrabbit

October 2003

Squeaky is home! Apparently and unfortunately, he never did manage to make any little Squeakies. The breeder suspects him of being imprinted; I suspect him sterile, but the only rabbit test Squeaky's going to take is the jackrabbit sort.

So now we have a cast of characters. The first few times they flew together was a little hairy. Polya would usually fly at Squeaky 2 or 3 times per hunt, sometimes giving chase. There was one scary situation where Polya held Squeaky by the neck, which was stopped by me clasping Polya's head gently. He jumped back about 2 feet. Squeaks is the prudent sort -- he will give way, avoiding rather than confronting. Which is in some ways unfortunate, because he's the better hunter when it comes to rabbits. If both birds go after quarry, Squeaky may break off the chase if Polya gets too close to him.

Fortunately, this seems to have eased somewhat. I elevated Squeaky's perch by about 1-1/2 inches -- a small difference by measurement, but it seems to have some effect. Of course, I can't say for certain if this is coincidental, but Polya seems to chase Squeaky less than before. There were also some issues of glove possession that seem to have been rectified by making a small right hand perch for Polya. (I found wearing a glove on the right hand made tidbit handling impossible.) So far no catches have been cooperative, but I suspect that one will come fairly soon.

Don't forget I have some "short" videos. They're big files, so they might take some time to load. I could also use some advice on compressing them. Enjoy.

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These few paragraphs come from a chance meeting I had two years ago with a falconer from Ecuador. It is not meant to be taken as a depiction of all falconry in that province, but as a record of a style of falconry which may soon disappear.

Tony is an Ecuadorean Indian who I met by chance in San Juan Bautista, California. He had been shopping at an American Indian store run by friends of mine who happened to mention I was coming down to visit and chase some jacks, and waited patiently two hours for me to show. He was very excited to learn that falconry was legal in the US and asked many questions about obtaining a license. Over dinner later, I managed to get a general picture of how he and his family did their hawking. He had learned falconry from his grandfather, and was the only person in his generation still doing it.

Tony's family is the last in his area still practicing subsistence falconry. My guess is they learned falconry from the Spanish. Their quarry is mostly rabbits and wild chickens. Not being well acquainted with South American hawks I was unable to determine the breed of hawk they use, but it seemed to be in the 30 ounce range and grey to black in color.

The birds are caught as branchers -- "Very easy," Tony said, and mimed grabbing one. Ecuadorean falconers use longish jesses, and do not use gloves -- instead they wear a shoulder pad and perch the bird there. Having a 41-oz female redtail at the time, I could appreciate the concept. If the bird bates, they do not try to hold it until it clambers back onto the fist as we do, they hold the jesses and let the bird go to ground.

Their idea of hoods is particularly unusual. Instead of the usual pitch-blackness required by Occidental and Oriental hoods, they allow a hole on each side. "This way they don't see depth," Tony explained, "they can't tell how far away a quarry is, so they don't go after it. But they can still see if something dangerous is coming." I'm not sure what the bird would do if something dangerous came, but being able to see probably makes them less shy of the hood.

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I presently have two stories making the rejection rounds among the magazines. If they get published, I'll slap that info up on this page right away and start handing out bad advice (heh). I also have three medium-sized novels cooking.

Working title: Making the New World. It's a rather amusing future-world tale where everyone on the planet is a pretentious artist. It has faint echoes of Moorcock's "End of Time" series, but is fortunately different from anything I've read, or written. Lots of wordplay.

Working title: Quantum Dreams. Half-cooked, half-written. It covers most everything I have an interest in: falconry, spying, hacking, computers, abnormal psychology, genetics, the definition of true love, quantum physics, and what happens to you after you die.

Working title: Helias. Post-post apocalyptic, semi medieval, city-states, war; a xenophobic exile from another country, a gay scientist, a lady falconer, and a power-hungry woman on the rise. Arguments, annoyances, xenophobia, bombs, possible murder, and love. Culture clash: polite hidden insults versus splattery pigheadedness.

I've alternated between writing and drawing for 16 years. The majority of my art employs either pencil or ink, and is photorealistic. Yes, I draw a lot of hawks, but I'm best at people (No, I haven't done John Lynch seriously yet. Just a sketch or two.) For several years I was totally incapable of writing a story without seeing it like a movie in my head, so I have 20 sketchbooks filled with comic strips. But I got lazy about backgrounds (Quantum Dreams has half of it set in a flat anonymous desert and laziness takes a spot of credit for that.)

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