What Falconry Is and Is Not Falconry is the sport of hunting with a trained bird of prey, usually a hawk or falcon. It is also the art of training the bird to hunt in cooperation with a human falconer. Falconry is also known as hawking. The two terms are synonymous and either is appropriate regardless of whether a falcon, a hawk or an eagle is being flown. Falconry is often touted as the oldest sport still being practiced. Coursing, the sport of running down game with sharp-eyed hounds, deserves that honor.
Still, hawking dates back perhaps years, which makes it far more venerable than say, football. And falconry is unique in being the only sport in world history to have a wild animal as the central participant.
While an experienced falconer can help his or her raptor hunt successfully, the falconer is essentially a spectator on the edges of the action. The real players are raptors. The relationship between a falconer and a raptor is very different from the relationship between a person and a pet.
For starters, a falconry bird is never a pet. It is painstakingly trained for a purpose — to catch prey in partnership with a person.
Unlike a dog, a trained raptor does not perform for the falconer because it wishes to please. Nor can it be forced to obey out of fear, as a horse might be.
A falconry bird responds to the falconer not out of affection or fear but because it has been trained to associate the falconer with food. This is done by carrying the bird on the glove for hours at a time, as well as by feeding it on the glove. Feeding on the glove teaches the bird to associate the falconer - and the glove — with food. Once the bird has accepted the falconer as the food-supplier, training can proceed to the next step.
Using food rewards — usually tidbits of chicken or quail — the falconer induces the tethered bird to fly a short distance to him or her. Gradually the distance is increased. Finally, when the tethered raptor has learned to fly to the falconer without hesitation, the bird can be taken out into the field and flown free. It does that by instinct. However, hunting skillfully is learned by experience, and the falconer helps the novice raptor gain the necessary experience.
Often the falconer will use a hunting dog to help in this task. The falconer watches the raptor just as carefully. Once the bird has made a kill it will not carry it back to the falconer, as is widely believed. So it is vital that the falconer is on the spot when the quarry is brought down. If the falconer is nowhere in sight, the raptor will proceed to eat its fill from its downed prey.
The now-full bird will have no interest in returning to the falconer, who can no longer motivate it with food. If these things happen, the falconer has lost control of the bird.
If all goes well and the falconer is nearby when the bird makes its kill, he or she gives the raptor a reward of food and removes the kill. The reward will be a small amount — a tidbit — so the bird will remain hungry and eager to hunt again. Only when the bird is returned to its home base will it be allowed a real meal.
Before the falconer hunts with his bird again he or she will weigh it carefully. If the bird exceeds its flying weight the weight at which it is hungry enough to hunt and strong enough to do it efficiently the experienced falconer will not hunt with it. Raptors hunt only when hungry because the effort and risk of making a kill are great. Raptors Used In Falconry There are some species of diurnal birds of prey, ranging in size from massive eagles down to minute falconets the size of a songbird.
They hunt almost exclusively by sight, and the eyesight of an eagle may be the sharpest in the world. Within this huge and varied group, only a handful of species make good falconry birds. Some species are too small to capture anything larger than a mouse.
Some are too nervous to be handled easily, while others are too sluggish to be interesting. They want to witness an interesting hunt. Birds that provide a worthwhile spectacle combined with the desirable size and temperament break down into three groups: Falcons, hawks and eagles.
As will be seen, owls once played an unexpected role in falconry. I have no good explanation for the practice. Falcons have long been considered the most desirable of the falconry birds because of their speed, dash and trainability. All longwings have long, relatively narrow wings that are triangular in shape, wide near the body and pointed at the tip. Seven species were widely used in medieval falconry: The gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus ; the peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus ; the saker falcon Falco cherrug ; the lanner falcon Falco biarmicus ; the lugger falcon Falco jugger ; the hobby Falco subbuteo ; and the merlin Falco columbarius.
The Eurasian kestrel Falco tinnunculus , a small falcon the size of a blue jay, was occasionally used by the common people. Its diminutive size meant it was limited to small, uninteresting prey like insects and mice, so nobility scorned it.
They especially prized the gyrfalcon, largest of the falcons, and the peregrine, the swiftest. Nowadays modern falconers can choose the prairie falcon Falco mexicanus from North America; the American kestrel Falco sparverius ; and hybrids of the different falcon species produced in captivity. Hawks The desirable hawks are divided into two groups by falconers: Accipiters and buteos. Accipiters are not easy to handle. These are birds for experienced falconers. But falconers thought the buzzard lacked dash — it often resorts to scavenging a meal — and they dismissed it as a falconry bird.
Modern falconers, however, can use two large and powerful buteos, both from North America. The red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis is a big, powerful and relatively easy-going hawk. Since it is a widely distributed, common species, in the U. An even larger bird is the ferruginous hawk Buteo regalis , but this somewhat temperamental species is more difficult to work with than the red-tailed hawk and has a much more restricted distribution.
Consequently it is much less used in falconry than the almost ubiquitous red-tail. This agile hawk can tackle anything from a quail to a rabbit or squirrel. In the wild this species hunts cooperatively in small family groups. Eagles Because of their great size and power, eagles are not now and never were used by many falconers.
As a group eagles are moody and inclined to be lazy. Moreover, their ability to fast for long periods makes their weight hard to control. He would pay a court falconer to do that. In practice, it appears that few court falconers really did fly golden eagles. These majestic birds of prey, which resemble a living sculpture, were more apt to be seen as symbols of royalty than as working falconry birds.
Appropriately so. Golden eagles can bring down prey weighing one hundred pounds, and this fast and aggressive species can be viewed as the ultimate hunting bird. Close relatives of the golden eagle occasionally used by falconers yesterday and today are the imperial eagle Aquila heliaca , the tawny eagle Aquila rapax rapax and the steppe eagle Aquila rapax nipalensis. Although all three are smaller than the golden eagle, they are still eagles and are for experienced falconers only.
Owls Owls are not considered good candidates for falconry birds because they are adapted for hunting in darkness, when the falconer is unable to see the hunt. Two species, the American great horned owl Bubo virginianus and the Eurasian eagle owl Bubo bubo have been trained by modern-day falconers to take gamebirds and rabbits and squirrels, but in general owls are hard to train. However, owls were used in Europe for a falconry-related purpose. Falconers were well aware that owls are hated and feared by other birds because by night these nocturnal hunters prey upon those other birds.
By day, any owl sighted is mobbed by other species, either to drive it away or to kill it. European falconers profited by this behavior by catching owls and staking them out in the open during migration. Raptors passing overhead would spot the helpless owl and alight to harass it. Concealed falconers were waiting to trap young, easily trained raptors for the upcoming hunting season. So while owls were not flown as falconry birds, they were used in the sport as decoys.
The practice was discontinued in Europe long ago; it was never used by American falconers. Falconry Equipment Think of all the equipment used in football. In that sport, the players are people and the specialized equipment is used on or by them. Falconry is different. The most important pieces, all of them devised centuries ago, are:.
This is the best way for a falconer to handle a hunting bird. The specially-made pair of bells will each ring with a different tone, to carry a long distance. The bells ring as the raptor shifts its feet to hold the prey.
Modern-day falconers still use bells, but rely on radio telemetry to track their birds from miles away. Traditionally falcons are hooded, because they are more high-strung than hawks.
Medieval falconers, men and women, used hooded falcons as props. Hooded falcons accompanied their noble owners to court, into banqueting halls, even into church. Glove — The falconer carries a trained raptor on a leather glove or gauntlet. The thickness of the leather and the length of the glove vary according to the size of the raptor.
In earlier centuries, the right hand would be needed to wield a sword or control a horse. Lure — The lure is an artificial quarry used for training and exercising a falconry bird. It is made to look like the prey a raptor is being trained to hunt. Falcons are trained with lures that resemble birds, while a lure shaped vaguely like a rabbit is used with hawks and eagles. Meat is attached to the lure, which is swung on a line. Probably it was invented independently in more than one place, and probably it developed over time, in fits and starts.
We can enjoy and promote all the best of modern falconry and support its traditional forms as well. We must protect and promote these vulnerable, minority aspects and practices of falconry as precious embodiments of world cultural history.
The project to have aspects of falconry recognised by UNESCO encourages research into the social history of falconry, enriches the historical consciousness of falconers and promote and safeguard falconry for future generations.
It achieved a very high level of refinement on the military campaigns of the Great Khans who practiced falconry for food and for sport between battles. One such military expedition reached almost to the gates of Vienna.
By the time of Marco Polo there were over 60 officials managing over trappers and more than falconers and falconry workers. Falconry was combined with legal and military affairs, diplomacy and land colonisation and moved accordingly, reaching Korea in BC and Japan much later. In China falconry once occupied a very significant role — there are many historic remains in literature, poems, painting and porcelain describing it in the culture of the imperial family, the nobility and the social life of the ordinary people.
Chinese falconry had an inseparable relationship with politics and power and written records go back prior to BC. These depict a very mature and technical falconry, exactly parallel with techniques used today. The imperial family of the time Chu Kingdom were already using falcons, eagles and shortwings in exactly the same way we do. This would put the birth of falconry in the region if indeed this was where falconry was born at over years ago.
It enjoyed imperial patronage and was popular among the aristocracy and even common people all through the centuries; largely due to the medieval society China endured all this time. With the decline and fall of the imperial family in , falconry at the aristocratic level became feeble and died. At the same time the falconry of the common people declined through conflict between ethnic groups, invasion by eight different foreign countries and ultimately World and Civil Wars.
It survived in ethnic minority groups — the Hui, Weir, Naxi etc until in the late 20th century falconry in China has revived and it has been estimated that there are almost as many falconers inside China than outside it.
There is archaeological evidence then from the 6th century onwards. They must work with their mentor to build an appropriate enclosure, called a mew, and purchase equipment. If they do all of the above, they can apply to be an apprentice falconer, where they will spend the next years working with their mentor and a limited number and species of raptors, most often red tail hawks and kestrels. If they graduate from apprentice, they move to a general falconer, where they no longer need a mentor and can possess more raptors and more types of raptors.
After that, they can move to Master Falconer, a title rarely achieved! These regulations are put to protect the falcons and the sport's integrity, but it Is not an easy hobby.
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