Making the dependence minimal.

[Pedro Af]

Hello everyone

What would happen if we train Harris without calling the bird to the fist.
One of the biggest problems around falconry whit Harris Hawks is
dependence.
Has Dr. Nick Fox said in Understanding the bird of prey: falconry requires the bird to come to the falconer for food and requires that the falconer take the prey from the bird. Doing this the falconer acts as father (food
provider) and sibling (stealing the food) and this way of acting just reinforce the dependence in the falconer.
Most of the Harris I know are naturally tame birds and they really don't
need much to get used to every day routine once they get of the parents chamber.
So what I want to know is how the bird would act, and maybe think, if we only call the bird to the lure until it is hunting effectively. Calling to the fist could be introduced latter in the birds' life!
I think that treating Harris in this way the dependence in the falconer would be minimal (maybe too minimal?) and the bird would - in my point of view- mature mentally in a faster way!!
Falconry training strategies are used for centuries and have proven their
value hover and hover again, but Harris are new to falconry - and maybe
this training strategies are not well directed to this specie.

opinions...

Good hawking
Pedro Afonso

[Shaun Byrne]

Surely if we call the bird back to the lure we are going to, at some point, have to get the bird off it. How do we do this without a food trade off? Once we have done it, we are only doing the same as we would to get them off a kill. By calling back to the lure we have just used the two methods that you were trying to avoid i.e. feeding (trade off) as a parent and taking a kill (lure) as a sibling.
If we call back directly to the fist we are only using one of these methods i.e. The parent role.

Just a thought.

[Goran]

I know few HHs that will fly over the field and sit on a car to go carhawking.From the car they will not land (if no catch) anywhere except back on a car.HHs learn fast where and what is food and what is easy way to get a food.This is why is very important to start them hunting ASAP.

[Shaun Byrne]

I agree Goran, I like to get through manning and lure work as quickly and smoothly as possible (without rushing) and get them out in the field as soon as I can.

[Chris S]

I think that with harris hawks some are just more vocal than others, i have a male harris that was flying free after 5days and entered after 10 and has killed over 20 phesants in the last 5 weeks,but he screams all the time,he is always allowed a full crop on every kill, never feed at home,flown at different times every week due to working shifts,yet i have never had this before,yet my female peregrine i can hand feed her and she has never made a sound.who knows what is going on in there minds!

[Goran]

Young HHs will start screaming if their weight is down real low.If you fly your male in just 5 days (really pushing it) after taken from his parents it means he did not get ANY food for 5 days.???!!! 8 -12 days works for me and I cannot see it done earlier than 7-8 days if you do not want your bird lost.

[Chris S]

no he took 2 days before he was feeding from the fist lost 2oz in weight,day 3 he was jumping to the fist,day 4 he was flying the lenght of the creance day 5 was flown free. should i have held him back?if so why?

[Pedro Af]

Before every thing sorry if my English is a little bad!
Training the Harris in a short period and doing a lot of hunting is the best way (in my point of view) to make the dependence minimal.
But In my case this is a little difficult because I don't have a lot of prey..so I cant hunt whit out some effort.
I think that if we train the Harris in a little different way it would be better:
1 - getting a bird that is parent raised
2 - man the bird a lot
3 - fed the bird in the lure (with no fur or featherers) with the bird flying from the fist to the lure on the ground
4 - when the bird is done on the lure just send a tidbit to the floor and she should get of the lure - hide it
5- get the bird on the fist again and start the process all hover again


I Think that doing this you are achieving much:
- the bird will see you has a way to get to food (not the food provider)
- you are teaching the bird to respond to the lure and achieving field control.
- You´re teaching the bird to hunt of the fist
- You could feed the bird in the lure and not in the fist.

Calling to the fist could be slowly introduced latter in the birds life - when she´s hunting well.

Pedro Afonso

[Shaun Byrne]

When you say that one of the problems with HH is dependence on the falconer, what do you actually mean?
Surely all falconry birds rely on us as we keep them in captivity and only allow them to hunt when it suits us. If we didn't satisfy this dependency our birds would die!
I dont think there is a problem with our HH being dependent on us, its just to what degree. If they are allowed to hunt regularly and given part of the kill as a reward I think a HH will gladly share its kill with you without a problem.
The problems start when a HH is fed on the fist too often and not hunted.

[Pedro Af]

Is well known that Harris have a long parental dependence period...when I refer dependence I´m talking about the bird seeing us as their parents (screaming and acting like a non mature bird...)

I don´t see dependence has a bad thing, it´s probably that dependence that make Harris easy to train and it´s a important thing in the early beginning. But many times birds just end up screaming a lot...I know that HUNT HUNT HUNT will end this sooner or latter.

But I also think that the training tecnics we use whit Harris should act in preventive way to make this dependence minimal trough time (minimal, not non inexistent)..

I´m talking of my particular circunstancies...not much easy quarry!

Forgive my bad English.
Pedro Afonso