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[Kevin Massey]

..

[Bones]

Agree there find MHH seem to love them mine will go extreme distant to get to them and doesn't like to give em up :twisted:

[Sean]

when you say waterhens do u mean moorhens lol? i aint got a clue

[Bones]

Yeah mate :wink:

[Kevin Massey]

thats the ****ers

[Sean]

lol

[Parahawker]

Best hawking i ever had with harris hawks was with Coots & moorhens
The trick is to know where your quarry is & where you need to put the harris
I mainly fly the harris hawks out the hood at them from the fist obviously
If you allow any close slips & especially from trees there more than dead.

In the right setup moorhens are as close to goshawking partridges as your going to get with a harris.
Oh i can hear ya all.. oh no way there all to easy.
Those that say this are not seeing the big picture of falconry
know your quarry & know your bird
If you do this then you know exactly what you need to do to achive these flights you say are not possible

Ive seen super fit harris hawks course them round fields after a 100yd head start.. take the harris a fair while to get near them to start with.
Once a moorhen gets going its faster than you think
biggest problem is getting the bird to take to the air.
It will take two of you & your bird being lose hooded to get a good setup
Harris hawks love moorhens, put your bird in the hardest position that it has to recover from.
I find it hard to belive that your harris is catching these moorhens unaided.
otherwise the sparrowhawks would have mopped them up long ago.
but it does happen.

Best flight i have ever seen, was a tiercel peregrine flown at coots 5 seconds out the hood after they flush, flights were VERY high & went up almost verticle 300 -400 ft
Look at the wing loading of a coot Vs size & weight of the moorhen!
the coots like a razorbill & puffin but wow can they fly!

Moorhens just need a little get going, They dispurse HUGE distances in search of new water, flying many thousands of miles.
I used to live in france many years ago & we hunted them in the mountains at 2000mt +
They didnt walk there!
Flight off the ice pools went 600yrs maybe accross open hills sides to reach cover.
A hard to find flight though.

just use your field skills in reverse. help that moorhen get away instyle

[Sniper]

Agree with parahawker, some of my best flying experiences has been with coots/morhens, HH seem to hate these waterfowl and will not and i mean will not give up until either its killed one or its managed to disapear unoticed, really gets your bird fit too

[Milsbon]

there a cracking food source, and as good as quail

[Parahawker]

There better than quail by a long way.
Maybe we could get the Vets on a thread on Food Values

[Bones]

me male HH on moorhen 4 th of the season took it after hard mornings flyin on pheasants missed several flights on pheasants and took this unsuspecting moorhen on way back to car spotted it out in the open around 80yrds from water he chased it from the fist and caught it just at waters edge fast flight to watch after missing a few lately
well happy :D

[Kevin Massey]

yucky green feet !!!!!!!!

[Wilded]

Anyone catch them with a red tailed hawk. I have been thinking of trying them here in Texas.

[Shaun Byrne]

My MRT has had dozens of them. Dont let your bird eat too much though, they are that rich it puts them overweight for days!!

[Miguel Gomez]

My MRT has had dozens of them. Dont let your bird eat too much though, they are that rich it puts them overweight for days!!

What kind of setup? From the fist, soar or perch? The ones I see every day get about 50 meters from the water and I was hopeing to come over a levee and let the hawk cut them off from the water flying from the fist. :?:

[Shaun Byrne]

All different set ups. From trees near small ponds or from the fist on riverbanks. I dont like my birds to soar, so never had one that way. I've had quite a few in small ditches on field boundaries.

[North East Harris Hawker]

my girl had another one of these yesterday, it was nearly two but one of them managed to hold its breath for what seemed like an eternity!

[The Late Lord Lucan]

Parahawker wrote...
In the right setup moorhens are as close to goshawking partridges as your going to get with a harris.

In the right set-up, moorhens will give a cracking flight. In the wrong set up, I prefer to call them 'Martyr-hens', they'll fly about thirty yards then seem to roll over as if to say 'oh go on then, kill me'.

On one of the farms that I use, the farmer has planted oil seed rape next to a large pond. The 'moorons' come out about 200 yards into this field. I can get a good point with my dog, and when they're flushed, they go like a scalded cat. They even gain height to about 100ft !
I've resorted to bashing a few with my peregrine when other stuff has been scarce.

I know they are good food for your bird, but has anyone ever eaten them themselves?
What do they tast like?
I'm told that coots taste like *****, but no -one I know has eaten Mooron.

Regards,
LLL.

[Wilded]

Cajans eat them here in the states. But then they eat anything that moves. :lol:

PS: They call them water chickens, maybe they know something we don't.

[Kevin Massey]

..

[North East Harris Hawker]

they look pretty rich meat, probbably end out with gout after eating one!
i do agree they can be a pain if your bird nails one early on a trip out, but if you have had an unsuccessful day they can be the perfect end to it :)

[3Kids-0Hawks]

I used to rely on them to enter my male RT and he went onto take rabbit no probs after. They did put him out of condition for a while ,but he did full crop up on them though.

[Miguel Gomez]

i think moorhens are very useful for entering birds, it certainly gives them confidence. Also, the field i hunt in is very close to fishing lakes, and the moorhens often try and get back to it when chased, which is a suprisingly fast chase.

[Varmint]

I think i saw a recipe somewher for moorhen breast wrapped in streaky bacon and slow roasted.

In fact i think they used to serve them at the falconers feast at the Old Hawking club anual meets?

I cant imagine prepared right thet they would taste too bad, but most of my moorehen days are gone as they arent that many in the area where i fly.

An old friend use to fly a coopers female and she wasnt intersted in anything but Moorhen? He hit upon a scheme to propigate and release them and incubated and hatched around 50 eggs.

They lasted about 2 days and died, he tried and tried but couldnt figure out what to feed them on?

The lengths some of us will go to eh? :wink:

[Miguel Gomez]

I have also caught a few, but the place was an old sand quarry which had filled with water. My Harris killed the bloody thing on an island so I had to strip off and go get the thing. This involved wading through cat ice and falling in. Needless to say as I stood naked in the wood with a dead Moorhen at my feet and a screaming Hawk in the tree, a dog walker from the local village came past, said hello and promptly vanished. :oops: :oops: :oops: . Not a good image for falconry as a whole methinks!!!!

[Hawkmaster]

Great story, I have done something similar on Dartmoor, except I was after a radio controlled boat. lol

How come you are signed in as Guest?

[Ben C]

Hawkmaster my account is now activated so you can see who I am now!!(not that you would care!!!!) :lol: :lol: :lol: And not that I did this on purpose, but if you get The Countrymans Weekly the whole thing was published yesterday. I am afraid that I can't set foot in the village anymore for fear of serious reprisals and probably being placed on the sex offenders register. :oops: :oops: :oops:

[Ben C]

Also I did eat the ******, just to balance the pain and humiliation you understand. :lol: :lol: It was like eating a deep fried Woodcock, the fat just oozed out of it and the skin was a yellowing crispy mess. It was also a tough as the sole on a tramps boot :cry: :cry: :cry: . However this hunting lark is all about personal sacrifice and the spirit of adventure so in for a penny in for a pound. Has anyone ever tried Vole!!!!!!! I,ve had enough to make several Vole fingered gloves :D :D :D :D

[Mr. Fong]

See, now I am curious- WTF did you do/eat????? PM me if you don't want to tell the world.......How does vole taste?? Does it taste like earthworms, crickets, or best of all--beetles??

[Hawkmaster]

WELCOME BENC! You sound mad enough to be part of the group? ENJOY!!!! lol

[Ben C]

Mr Fong.....I ate the Moorhen with great relish....picking blackthorn and bramble from my foreskin for 2 hours after my dip, it deserved being eaten :lol: :wink: :lol: :lol:

[Mr. Fong]

Dude, I feel for you... was it any good or did you need some brown sauce on it?