Is a great bird born or made??

[Keith Robert Talbot]

Thought i'd start a new thread on some thoughts i've been having lately, about just how to make a great gos not just an average one. I believe that breeding does represent alot, and you need to select a bird from a line that flies in the style you like (for example some lines time and time again produce birds that never stop pumping those wings when they are after quarry.) However I am now begining to think that the key period is in the first 6 months to a year of hunting when the bird is at a stage akin to human's puberty in which muscle is put on quickly. I think that if you ensure that the bird gets daily hard fast flights after quarry like pheasant and you avoid too many easy kills that the proportion of the different muscle fibres the bird puts on will change and you shape the bird to become the sort of bird that will always pump hard after quarry and be a stunner in the field. My apologies for the emptying of the brain - as a fourth year vet student at Edinburgh we're trained to question and challenge all the time and when i started doing this with my falconry I began to wonder whether the normal routine of rabbiting and alot of very easy kills with young birds is making our birds (read that my bird!) inherently lazy. I'd be very interested to hear other people's thoughts on this whether the owners of truly stunning birds believe it is mainly down to the experiences the bird has had or whether it was in them from day one. It would also be very interesting to hear if anyone has been given an average bird after its first season and changed its whole style of flight and made it into the sort of gos that really pumps after quarry through encouraging it to take on faster quarry and suitable reward etc.

All the best

Keith.

[KiteTrainer]

I think a great deal has to do with the falconer. There are numerous potentially good birds wasted in the wrong hands.

[SparkleBee]

hi
I think that what a bird learns and achieves in its first 4 or 5 months of life
has a big influence on its future both physically and mentally. I reckon thats
why hacked birds often outperform unhacked ones, regardless of breeding.

[Berkut]

Thought i'd start a new thread on some thoughts i've been having lately, about just how to make a great gos not just an average one. I believe that breeding does represent alot, and you need to select a bird from a line that flies in the style you like (for example some lines time and time again produce birds that never stop pumping those wings when they are after quarry.) However I am now begining to think that the key period is in the first 6 months to a year of hunting when the bird is at a stage akin to human's puberty in which muscle is put on quickly. I think that if you ensure that the bird gets daily hard fast flights after quarry like pheasant and you avoid too many easy kills that the proportion of the different muscle fibres the bird puts on will change and you shape the bird to become the sort of bird that will always pump hard after quarry and be a stunner in the field. My apologies for the emptying of the brain - as a fourth year vet student at Edinburgh we're trained to question and challenge all the time and when i started doing this with my falconry I began to wonder whether the normal routine of rabbiting and alot of very easy kills with young birds is making our birds (read that my bird!) inherently lazy. I'd be very interested to hear other people's thoughts on this whether the owners of truly stunning birds believe it is mainly down to the experiences the bird has had or whether it was in them from day one. It would also be very interesting to hear if anyone has been given an average bird after its first season and changed its whole style of flight and made it into the sort of gos that really pumps after quarry through encouraging it to take on faster quarry and suitable reward etc.

All the best

Keith.

Keith,
Very good thread. Average goshawks are easy made and in truth a female gos that is not good on rabbits doesn't deserve to be alive. Goshawks are all about feather, and seeing a good goshawk mowing down a cock pheasant in January is when you know you have a top class goshawk. I think you are spot on with your thoughts that a spectacular gos is made in the first six months of its life. Yes they have naturally ability and instinct, but in captivity we as the falconers have to bring out the best in them through proper feeding and general conditioning both physically and mentaly.

ATB,
Neil.

[Alf]

Born! We only bring it out. Alf.

[Pendleside]

it has been said many times that approximately 75% of wild raised birds die in their first winter .
if that is the case then the 25% that do make it through their first year are the natural survivors , the potential gene carriers for the future generations .
in falconry an individual birds hunting skill isnt the factor that decides between life and death as in the wild .
adept or not , none go hungry .
the 75% that would fail in the wild live , and are in a lot of cases bred from , therefore making the natural selection process invalid .
if you are lucky enough to acquire one of the 'natural survivors' from either a captive bred clutch or from your trap (if your country allows it) then you already have the raw potential 'in hand ' so to speak .
my personal views are that the good birds already have something in them from the day they hatch .
with careful and consistent management something exceptional often emerges .
nature or nurture ?
in falconry's case the two are inextricably linked .

[Paris]

Hi i can only say that goshawks are like humans not everybody can run a 3 minute mile but exceptions are made and born. We as falconers are the trainers 4 the olympics, because that is what a goshawk flies every time it chases a cock pheasant in jan. Only the best will have the bottle to do it and take it's prey . I am lucky to have such a goshawk it has taken me 5 years to find a gos like this, he will hunt all day and still chase a cock bird for 1/2 a mile after 5 or 6 long hard flights every day of the week.
Best regards Harry Pyle. . IMPRINTS BIGGER STRONGER FASTER. GOOD HAWKING 2 ALL.

[Ben C]

You cannot polish a turd...............99.9999999999999999 blood. I mean if I can get a spar going anyone can, and if it kills WILD birds that is ****** all to do with me and more the hawk.

[GoodFooter]

However I am now begining to think that the key period is in the first 6 months to a year of hunting when the bird is at a stage akin to human's puberty in which muscle is put on quickly. I think that if you ensure that the bird gets daily hard fast flights after quarry like pheasant and you avoid too many easy kills that the proportion of the different muscle fibres the bird puts on will change and you shape the bird to become the sort of bird that will always pump hard after quarry and be a stunner in the field.
All the best

Keith.

I'd guess that the number of muscle fibres would be pretty much set genetically.....I think any increase in size of the muscle would be hypertrophy rather than hyperplasia ie its the muscle fibres getting larger rather than increasing in numbers ( certainly the case in adipose tissue in humans) .....thus the answer to your question would be the the two factor breeding & training both have there part to play.......but the ultimate gos would have to be well bred ( one with a larger number of muscle fibres/cells) inorder for it to be trained to its peak to make it the best...
it could possibly be argued that the two types of fibre, fast twitch & slow twitch and their relative proportions may also play a part but I guess that depends whether you want your Gos to be a marathon flyer or quick grab sprinter.
ATB Rob

[Ben C]

Nice post young man!

Quick jab everytime for me...:supz:

[GoodFooter]

Nice post young man!

Quick jab everytime for me...:supz:

If my hawk doesnt pull the quarry down in the first 150 yrs likely hood is I wont be seeing the flight....with all these damned hedges,woods & banks and cant see the point of flying a bird I cant see so fast sprint for me everytime ( OK until i move to the Fens or Yorkshire dales!)

[Jackson]

omg is this a nature nurture debate????? omg brings bakc memories of psychology a level -- didnt actualy think it would come in handy or have anything to do with the real world lol :lol:

from what i remember, this is how i interpreted it!

ok a bird is born with certain qualities e.g. size, intelect, character etc
it is then down to the environment to develop these qualities e.g. bring out the best in the bird.

as we know all birds are diferent and some types of training will work for one bird but no another thus strongly suggesting that genetics has something to do with it!!

just my ad in!:wink:

[Keith Robert Talbot]

Thanks very much guys for all the replies, some really good points raised for me to mull over, i think neil gets it right when he says that you know you have a good gos when its mowing down a january cock pheasant. This is i guess what is inspiring me to seek more from my falconry than just nobbling bunnies which any gos should do. Paulbop raises an interesting point about hacked birds, i have no experience of hacked gos's but have flown a hacked pere and would say that you could certainly put alot less fitness training into that bird than normal and still the bird wouold out perform others. This lends weight to the theory that alot is determined by the experiences in the bird has in those early months.

Pendleside then raises another really good point that upto 75% of wild raptors die in their first year, thus natural selection is occuring for the fittest and most skilled hunting birds. Turn this around to falconry and asks what happens to birds that aren't exactly what you are looking for - most find their way in the end to a breeding chamber. Whereas the once in a lifetime birds none of us can put down as flying them is such a pleasure and so many don't pass on their genes. So are we infact selecting for the not such natural performers?

I wish to fly a female finnish next season or the one after and i guess i shall be looking for the right line to start with - with offspring that are class performers in the field. on top of this i will try to keep most of my first season hawking to varied feather in an attempt to encourage the bird to always put 100% into the chase. Possibly in the future when time and land etc allow it i would like to try hacking an imprint gos to see how much it would affect the birds ability to fly.

ATB and many thanks once again to everyone

Keith

[Banwell Falconry]

No such thing as a bad bird, just bad training....So it's all bird.....

[Berkut]

Good posts and interesting points on this thread. Regardless of any birds potential when it comes out of the egg in captivity,it will make nothing special if it is not fed,trained,conditioned and given the right chances. A top class goshawk is made,or not, in the first season soon after hard penning.

I have an imprint gos that took over 800 head,half of that feather,over 4 seasons. She pulled both decks and they never regrew, which resulted in the tail collapsing very quickly from then on. She was taken out the chamber after more than a year off. After initial fitness was achieved she was pulling down cock pheasants as she had done before,but unfortunately her tail collapsed again in no time.

I do hope to fly a youngster from her at some point.

[GoodFooter]

A top class goshawk is made,or not, in the first season soon after hard penning.

.

I appreciate it wasnt a goshawk but I had a f coops which was supposedly untouched in adult plumage. At the time I wanted a coops and that was the only one I could find. I got her from jeremy edwards and believe Natch on here bred her.
She was a demon bird....she never reached her full potential as I found it difficult to match up with suitable quarry but she flew her heart out. So I'm not convinced the early days do make a hawk or that one should have been ****.....still to this day not convinced she wasnt flown in the first season though but would have thought the owner would have been pretty proud of her rather than selling her as 'untouched'.

The better hunting birds I have flown seemed 'naturally' more agressive than the less caperable ones....not sure if anyone else has noticed this.
regards Rob

[Alf]

Neil good hawks make good falconers!
Some hawks lend themselves to being trained as falconry birds far better than others nothing to do with handling or what the falconer is doing seen it so many times before a mediocre falconer comes across a great bird it does everything hunts great kills on peace returns instantly once this hawk has been lost or has died or whatever and a replacement has to be picket up the same falconer struggles with the next hawk.
It’s my opinion that great hawks aren’t made by the falconer only there given the opportunity to do what comes naturally if it’s in them they show it no matter what.
If you come across a good hawk you know it from day one.
The first time a laid eyes on Zapp I knew instantly this musket would make a good hawk, his calmness around humans his mannerisms told me he would be almost bombproof and he is! Reared an imprint musket from 8 days old a few years back and the same musket wouldn’t sit on the fist without bating I could never have made a good hawk out of this musket no matter how hard I tried.
Alf.


Good posts and interesting points on this thread. Regardless of any birds potential when it comes out of the egg in captivity,it will make nothing special if it is not fed,trained,conditioned and given the right chances. A top class goshawk is made,or not, in the first season soon after hard penning.

I have an imprint gos that took over 800 head,half of that feather,over 4 seasons. She pulled both decks and they never regrew, which resulted in the tail collapsing very quickly from then on. She was taken out the chamber after more than a year off. After initial fitness was achieved she was pulling down cock pheasants as she had done before,but unfortunately her tail collapsed again in no time.

I do hope to fly a youngster from her at some point.

[Berkut]

I appreciate it wasnt a goshawk but I had a f coops which was supposedly untouched in adult plumage. At the time I wanted a coops and that was the only one I could find. I got her from jeremy edwards and believe Natch on here bred her.
She was a demon bird....she never reached her full potential as I found it difficult to match up with suitable quarry but she flew her heart out. So I'm not convinced the early days do make a hawk or that one should have been ****.....still to this day not convinced she wasnt flown in the first season though but would have thought the owner would have been pretty proud of her rather than selling her as 'untouched'.

The better hunting birds I have flown seemed 'naturally' more agressive than the less caperable ones....not sure if anyone else has noticed this.
regards Rob

I see what your saying Rob and there are always exceptions. I have seen a large number of goshawks that people are happy to fly at ferreted rabbits week in and week out and when a pheasant flushes they have no chance.

[RabbitHawker]

Both.
There is massive selection pressure on wild birds of prey in the first year, up to 75% die, we don't ( shouldn't) have that in falconry, so there are massive differences in birds of the same species depeneding on their parents and a bit of pot luck, you can get a bad bird from the best parents.
However it must be said that there are huge numbers of birds ruined every year by inexperienced/poor falconers who do not train their birds right/ put in enough time/ show enough of the right quarry.
I trained 2 male hh the same season from different breeders/ different rearing techniques, and they were like chalk and cheese, both were excellent hunters, but one was consistently good every day, the other on a good day had to be seen to be believed, but both were trained the same way 10 days apart.
ALL my birds have been entered on good wild quarry and have hunted well, I have flown a goshawk, harris hawks, and a wide range of hybrid falcons at a range of quarry.
Chris

[GoodFooter]

I see what your saying Rob and there are always exceptions. I have seen a large number of goshawks that people are happy to fly at ferreted rabbits week in and week out and when a pheasant flushes they have no chance.

I guess a big part of this thread is close to my heart at the momment....Rosie has had one course of antibiotics and is half way through another without the foot looking any better.....I'm guessing an operation to drain the infection will be on the cards.....she's only on 17 kills. so I'm concerned the op will lay her up for even longer. A longer course of antibiotics may lay her open to fungal infection and a break from hunting couldnt come at a worse time. Not great which ever way I look at it. Still suppose her health has to come before my hunting aspirations.
any advice welcome.
Rob

[KarlFalcons]

Hello
In my opinion a great bird is born not made.Sorry,my english is'nt good enough to explain.
But believe me,in my falcorylife it's now fifty years,I've found a handful of birds most long
wings but also one goshawk was born as a great bird.From a bird with average genetics
you can make a very good bird if you are a good falconer,but not the real great one.
But believe me,if you have the luck to get such bird,you will find out immediately that is it.
regards
Karl

[MattSpar]

it has been said many times that approximately 75% of wild raised birds die in their first winter .
if that is the case then the 25% that do make it through their first year are the natural survivors , the potential gene carriers for the future generations .
in falconry an individual birds hunting skill isnt the factor that decides between life and death as in the wild .
adept or not , none go hungry .
the 75% that would fail in the wild live , and are in a lot of cases bred from , therefore making the natural selection process invalid .
if you are lucky enough to acquire one of the 'natural survivors' from either a captive bred clutch or from your trap (if your country allows it) then you already have the raw potential 'in hand ' so to speak .
my personal views are that the good birds already have something in them from the day they hatch .
with careful and consistent management something exceptional often emerges .
nature or nurture ?
in falconry's case the two are inextricably linked .

That's interesting.

My own view is that it's nowhere near as important for a trained hawk to be one of the 25% of "survivors" in order to be classed as "good".

Being able to fly down a winter cock pheasant in mid-flight, which we hold as being the hallmark of a good gos, has no relevance to whether that gos would survive in the wild. Yes, it may have the speed to do this, but if it were in the wild, would it have the know-how to find it in the first place? Would it know which side of a valley to shelter on to avoid the cold wind? Would it learn where to roost, when to bathe, how to live alongside man without collecting a charge of lead shot?

There's a heck of a lot more to living in the wild than just being able to outfly a pheasant.

[Greg]

I often hear this 75% dying each year quoted as natural selection but this has been going on for millions of years! If this was just natural selection then by any reasoning then the percentage of birds dying in their first year should slowly reduce! I think it is more down to the balance of nature reducing the population of predators to match the population of prey. Yes the surviving birds may have had an edge but this may well have been as simple as fledging a few days earlier hatching in an area where there is a good population of early migrant quarry or in the case of a Spar or Kestrel not too close to a Gos or Peregrine! Yes there will always be a small percentage of birds that don't match up but I don't believe that it is anywhere near to 75%. I think the first year of a birds life is generally the make or break period and as a falconer we must take responsibility for how our birds turn out.
Greg

[GoshawkRST]

Hello.

In my opinion, I belive a great bird is both Born and Made.
Like McDermott said in his book " good hawks are trained, great hawks are properly made ".

Regards...