Flying a Passage Female Coopers Hawk

[Adam Chavez]

I just acquired a passage female Coopers Hawk and was curious about other peoples method of training these birds as well as what quarry they are flying them on. What are your thoughts?

[Jack]

Not knowing what you have to hunt there it would be difficult to suggest a quarry. Quail come to mind. The Cooper's is a premo quail hawk. Around here I like the woodcock too. I would not stay too long in each phase of training and manning. They can become intimidating at times when they get too involved in the training process rather than in hunting.

Jack

[FredrickFogg]

I just acquired a passage female Coopers Hawk and was curious about other peoples method of training these birds as well as what quarry they are flying them on. What are your thoughts?

Adam, when you say you "acquired" a passage female coops, did you trap this bird or has some one else had it and passed it on to you? The reason I ask, if someone else had the bird before you and created a bunch of problems with it, you would be better off turning it loose and trapping you own and starting fresh. Now if you trapped it yourself, well, you will get a bunch of different ways to train them from folks. I have a 2nd year imprinted female coops ( and I use that term imprinted loosely ) and training an imprint is a little different than a passage. I caught starlings, grackles and crows with her, but I don't have quail or any other gamebird to hunt her on. But they are pretty versatile birds, so you can pretty much hunt any type of bird you want with them that is legal. Good luck with her, they are definately a different breed! LOL

Fred

[Adam Chavez]

This female Coop was trapped by a fellow falconer friend of mine when it flew into his pigeon loft. It was cropped up before she was found. I have trained a handful of the passage males but never a female. The males are good right off the fist as sparrows, starlings and quail. If it were an imprint I would never train it to the fist but rather to the lure. So I am debating how I should train this bird. I feel the passage birds you can train to the fist to develop a better bond and you don't have to worry about face grabbing like you would an imprint. I kind of lkied calling my imprints to the lure so I just haven't decided which way I want to go with this yet. As far as game there are some quail, cottontail, crows starlings, pigeons, and doves to choose from. I just wanted to try and get a feel for what others are doing.

[HawkerDiverGal]

Frootdog is a great person to PM on this, as he has a second year Coop. She is an imprint, but the prey should be the same. I know that he flies her primarily on birds: Sparrows, starlings, grackles, doves, etc. She did take a rabbit last season, but he has never intentionally flown on them. Drop him a PM, and he will have some great training/hunting advice for you.

[Hatchero]

passage coops were my bread and butter when i was a kid growing up in San Diego (when it was still rural). the females are death on quail in just about any circumstance, this was my preferred quarry. the problem in SoCal is that females also love cotton tails and they ruin a lot of flights on quail. another problem is that often the females will go on jackrabbits as well and this is dangerous, a friend of mines female coops was gutted by a jack and died shortly after. another friend caught a great blue heron with his female (actually caught its head sticking out of the reeds) the same friend was pretty successful with this same coops on teal on creeks. of course the females are nuts for thrashers and towhees and such just like the males only they are not as good on them. you will find the female is a little better than the males getting through thick chapparel. good luck with her.
Jim

[Jack]

I have only flown passage Cooper's and I much prefer the females over the males. I fly them strictly from the fist and do not allow them to branch from tree to tree. So because of this I never do the jump to the fist for tidbit thing. I train them to the lure, but never go about calling them to the fist for food. I just do all my manning with the hawk on my fist and when it is not on my fist it is hooded and perched. Never perched unhooded. I carry the hawk everywhere, mostly outside and up and down the road and through the woods and such. When the hawk becomes tame enough I will hide little lures here and there so that I can jerk one out when we walk close. This keeps her on the fist and watching. I will eventually set up a few baggie flights for her along the way instead of the lures and let her fly and catch them. When trained this way they do not even fly to a perch when they miss a flight. They just swing around and come right back to the fist. The only time I tidbit is when they are on the lure or a kill and that is to assure them my approach is to be considered something good.
I think tidbitting can get out of control. The hawk can see patterns form very quickly. She can come to realize that if she should fly off to a bush or tree you will offer her a tidbit to return. Eventually she will not see the need to fly that far and will flop off the fist at your feet and act like she is going to climb your leg. That is strictly an effort to intimidate you into feeding them. So for this reason again, I do not call them to tidbits. You do not have to associate yourself with food with the passage hawks. Not directly. Riding the fist and hunting from there becomes the prefered method by the little hawks, and in fact, it is about the only way to actually hunt them with real success.

Jack