Old pic of one of my falcons

[PeanutbuttER]

Growing up I was a falconer. This is one of the birds that I kept over the years. She's a prairie falcon named Mira. She was a high-strung little thing. I'll have to dig around and see if I can't find any other pictures of my other birds as well.

Anyhow, this is just a picture someone took of me sitting outside with her one day. Not a lot of people get to see birds like this up close.

 

[Tom]

Very cool. I always wanted to get into falconry. Just never made the time.

 

[Jacqui]

Neat! Just seeing these majestic birds up close at a friend's raptor sanctuary was an experience for me, can't imagine getting to touch them and work with them. How did you get into it?

 

[Laura]

Do you still do it?
I looked into it a while back to learn about it, and its pretty intense.Lost of time need to be dedicated to the sport and the animal.

 

[Tortuga_terrestre]

Too cool! Do you purchase meat for it at the supermarket? Or do you let hunt?

 

[PeanutbuttER]

Yes, falconry takes a lot of time. You're training a little athlete, so you have to fly them every day (and its best if its at the same time every day) and keep very exact records of weight gain, how much food is given, and monitor their "hunger" constantly. It's actually real cool how you figure their weight out perfectly. You look at how much weight they lost in the last day, then feed them so many ounces of food accordingly. Every once in a while though you have to break the routine and give them a feast/treat where they just gorge themselves. It's very funny to see how full they get.

I'm not currently practicing, but someday I may again. Very cool sport and very rewarding. Sadly, almost nobody practices. Last number I heard, there are roughly 5000 falconers in the US and that's it.

Jacqui- my dad got me into it. He did it growing up and it always interested me. When I was 14 or 15 I decided to get into it and went about making/building all the equipment I'd need. After all that, I took my test, got licensed (3 licenses - state, federal, and capture permit) and got my first bird. This one is the last I had before I stopped.

Tortuga- yes and no. I used chicken gizzards a lot when i was still in the beginning phases of training but transitioned over to using frozen quail. There was a guy near us (within an hour) that raised quail and he sold them frozen with the feet cut off for $30 a bag (about 25 quail in a bag). Each quail is big enough to last for about 3-4 days so a bag went quite a ways.

I'll have to find pictures of the other birds as well. I also had a red-tailed hawk, peregrine, and a peregrine/gyrfalcon hybrid.

 

[Tortuga_terrestre]

If I lived on a ranch, I would sooo take up that sport.

 

[PeanutbuttER]

Actually, you don't need a ranch. You'd do just fine with a big open park or any sort of empty field nearby where you could fly him/her. Housing isn't actually that bad(especially by tort standards). An 8x8 room or shed with some perches in it is what is most commonly used.