prairies

[Mark Collins]

Hi most people would have seen the excelant threads on prairies by seagull basher , i have flown 2 tiercel prairies , a female , and 2 gyr,prairies , male and female, imprints and parent reared. They are very demanding , almost like shortwings , they are high maintenance birds even the imprints and are much better if they are flown on a daily basis they certainly detioriate if left for to long , my parent reared tiercel if left for a week or more would bate at my face like a imprinted spar , but if flown every day he was good as gold, the tiercels i flew waiting on ocer hedgerows, and farm buildings catching doves , blackbirds, feral pigeons, small birds , the female was flown at rooks but she was pigeon mad, in fact i lent her to colin on the landfill to get her more focused she took about 30 all together , b ut she was very choosy, anyway i thought i would start a thread about prairies , any body out there flying one if so what sex , and what quarry, i have just picked up a tiercel , barbary,prairie, and flew him first time today very boyant , looks like he will be great fun going to waiting on , see how we go , cheers , mark.

[ChrisRobbo]

Got one in the center that is currently being flown just to the lure for fittness but in a few weeks will be ready to put at quarry, probaly at the same quarry as your tiercel's were flown at.

These birds are just incredible he weighs in at 1lb 2 1/2oz and he is a totaly parent rearded one year old.

When we took this bird from its moult pen a few weeks back now it has got to be one of the funiest things as it had a good bite of my mates arm and was twisting for fun.

The bird was a loonatic and made a saker on a bad day look pleasent! The noise that they make has just the right pitch to pierce your eardrum.

Well we manned it down gradually got it feeding of the fist again. Then it was ready to try it on a dropped lure while on the creance. We took in out to the flying lawn gave it some line and i dropped the lure out for it, Instantly it came and piled into it! It had one thing in its mind and that was killing the lure. That was my first real insight into why peole put up with the hardships of a praire when they could have a peregrine.

Gradually now he is working the lure and his deemener has changed, i would not go as far to say he is pleasant but he is tolerable. A cracking little pocket rocket that i look forward to flying (i've been offered him on loan early next year).

So i will let you know how we get on.

Good luck with your bird.

Here are a couple of pics.

ATB Chris

[Mark Collins]

Hi chris , nice pictures , i love to hear about other prairies being flown, the tiercels especialy are so guttsy , who bred this one , is it from scotland ,mine was bred by a guy called paul burns {my female ]she flys at 1.10. last years bird , good luck with him , let me no how you get on, cheers , mark. p,s, i have worked how to downsize pictures , but cant transfer them to forum, get there eventually when i do will post pictures, ,mark.

[ChrisRobbo]

Yeah i believe he came from up scotland way. From what i hear there are very few naturally breeding pairs of praires in the country? Shame really.

Look forward to seeing the pictures.

ATB Chris