Quick Training

[Phil Noble]

Well today i was reading a book called"understanding the bird of prey"-nick fox and he claims to have trained a new zealand falcon,
(freshly caught out of the hack box and left to settle in the weathering for a day or so) in only 20minutes!By this time she was stooping to the lure!
Is this for real or is he making it up,as this sounds nearly impossible!
Has anyone here done this that quickly? as the shortest time to get a hawk entered that i have heard was 4 days?
I guess it does depend on the species and that every bird is different.
I would like to hear how quick yours were and your opinions on this were!
ATB
Phil

[Little Joe]

I won't call Dr Fox a lier, but I'd imagine he must have at least forgotten to put food in the hackbox for a day or three before he pulled the bird...:roll:

[FalconGriff]

Like a lot else in that Bible I just don't agree and I'm being polite!! My wife made the comment after reading the section on breeding "I glad we were breeding lots of birds before reading that or we would have made lots of mistakes", says it all!!

[SANBoPC]

Well today i was reading a book called"understanding the bird of prey"-nick fox and he claims to have trained a new zealand falcon,
(freshly caught out of the hack box and left to settle in the weathering for a day or so) in only 20minutes!By this time she was stooping to the lure!
Is this for real or is he making it up,as this sounds nearly impossible!
Has anyone here done this that quickly? as the shortest time to get a hawk entered that i have heard was 4 days?
I guess it does depend on the species and that every bird is different.
I would like to hear how quick yours were and your opinions on this were!
ATB
Phil

I believe its possible. I think the 20min he's speaking of is total time over a few days. The "record" if one can call it that for training, flying, hunting and losing a bird on 2nd kill is four days - Haggard musket Ovambo Spar.
Trevor

[Little Joe]

I read the book ages ago and forgot the details, but I have an idea we might not have all the facts available regarding the "20-minute bird".... as Trevor suggests.

The "record" for Arab falconers as related to me by a highly respected local falconer is three days. That means trapping a wild saker, waking with it and after three days he was hunting. He admitted that it was a haggard and he suspected that the bird might have been trapped and trained before.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I wish I had the author's help with my Scottish tiercel recently - took me a full week, countless hours of manning and a 20% weight reduction before he showed any interest in food! First free flight he ******ed off and I had to track him for 2 days - guess thats why I dont get to write books about falconry :lol:

[Eagle-Eyrie]

I believe its possible. I think the 20min he's speaking of is total time over a few days. The "record" if one can call it that for training, flying, hunting and losing a bird on 2nd kill is four days - Haggard musket Ovambo Spar.
Trevor

i was working for trev during the time that he refers to regarding the ovambo,
first day manning and he ate off the fist!
second day manning and flying on the creance almost full length,
third day flew full lenght on creance and then free
forth day HUNTING:supz:

i was astonished by the calmness of the haggard musket, but none the less made for some interesting insights into traning, i learned a lot from trev and always push the mentor route! i would not advise beginners to read this thread and then think they could pull it off, remember most of these stories come from falconers with a lot of experience and know exactly what to do. i would not advise rushing the training prosess rather be safe than sorry, look at little joe, a top export from sa and even hes had his fair share of hassels just like me. thats why we post on threads and not write books:lol:lol

good hawking

dylan

[Monti]

Hi,

I had a passage tiercel gos' which was trapped and kept two days on the screen perch before I startet to work him. It took five more days and it was possible to fly him free. He had an extraordinary good response to the fist, but on the lure or prey it was hard to pick him up, because he wasn't really tame at all...
In my opinion you can train a bird within a few days enough for coming back under secure circumstances (no people, cars...) but it tooks more time to get it really tame.
Normally I need about three weeks for a goshawk to fly her loose. I can't remember how much time I spent for manning falcons, surely not as much as for goshawks ;-)

[RyanP]

I've read that part too and i kinda think its impossible

[Sean White]

I wish I had the author's help with my Scottish tiercel recently - took me a full week, countless hours of manning and a 20% weight reduction before he showed any interest in food! First free flight he ******ed off and I had to track him for 2 days - guess thats why I dont get to write books about falconry :lol:


Joe... from your posts it seems you speak alot of truths, perhaps this is the reason you dont write books about falconry ? :)

I prefer things to be told the way they are..... keep posting :)

Sean.

[MattSpar]

Of course it's not possible and anyone who thinks it is is deluding themselves.
A trained bird is one which is safe to fly loose regularly, is manned and tame in most daily conditions and has a certain predictability of behaviour which can more or less be counted on.
It's perfecly possible to have had that NZ falcon stooping in twenty minutes but it's not trained. Not by a long chalk.
I remember someone bringing a musket they'd found, to the Centre. Mima had a chick in her glove and as the guy opened the box, the musket, which was undoubtedly wild, flew directly to her fist and began feeding. It was very hungry indeed, but no more trained than that NZ.
I've trained some hawks in a pretty short time, a merlin in five days for example but twenty minutes?

'avin a laugh ain't yer?

[K.K]

MattSpar, yes, this is a usual false behavior of the muskets. I know for it too. Very fallacy for people who face it and they don't know about it.

[Dean]

I had a falcon last season,she fed from the fist within hours of pen,rousing and content on the fist,showed no fear of animal or machine,was fed via lure and whistle for three days on the lawn and was flown free on the fourth!She had to be,on unhooding her from her block she woiuldnt let me walk any distance from her,she was on her way lure still in the bag!I was fully confident she would turn after a cast and so she did!I was lucky she I had her late for she was entered thirteen days later!The tiercel I flew the season before took three weeks prior to free flight,his brother slightly quicker.Many years ago I had a passage musket that was flying from the kitchen door for food within hours of wild!

[Sean White]

Enlighten me Dean... whats your secret ?

[MattSpar]

I had a falcon last season,she fed from the fist within hours of pen,rousing and content on the fist,showed no fear of animal or machine,was fed via lure and whistle for three days on the lawn and was flown free on the fourth!She had to be,on unhooding her from her block she woiuldnt let me walk any distance from her,she was on her way lure still in the bag!I was fully confident she would turn after a cast and so she did!I was lucky she I had her late for she was entered thirteen days later!The tiercel I flew the season before took three weeks prior to free flight,his brother slightly quicker.Many years ago I had a passage musket that was flying from the kitchen door for food within hours of wild!

Very impressive.

Twenty minutes anyone....?

[Johnson C]

I think this was wrote a little wrong (personally i dont fully understand "Phil's" original post. (freshly caught out of the hack box and left to settle in the weathering for a day or so) in only 20minutes!By this time she was stooping to the lure!
The way i read this is the bird was in a hack box for no idea how long (from chick maybe, if this is the case it would be used to seeing humans) then it was caught from hack and was weathered with gear and was around humans.

After seeing NZ falcons and looking after them i know they are totally different to any other falcon i have worked with or trained before, for one they they are VERY VERY smart, anyone that has worked with one for more than a day will know this. some do tame down extremely fast!

If this bird was at hack and was fedd food used on a lure then they are smart enough to know exactly what it is and if it is hungry (probably would be being a small bird)

not saying this happened but saying it could be possible for a New Zealand

[Dean]

Enlighten me Dean... whats your secret ?
No secrets mate,Im not gonna mention my praires other than one flew from the closed palm position!!:twisted:Some birds have very different personas!

[SANBoPC]

i was working for trev during the time that he refers to regarding the ovambo,
first day manning and he ate off the fist!
second day manning and flying on the creance almost full length,
third day flew full lenght on creance and then free
forth day HUNTING:supz:

i was astonished by the calmness of the haggard musket, but none the less made for some interesting insights into traning, i learned a lot from trev and always push the mentor route! i would not advise beginners to read this thread and then think they could pull it off, remember most of these stories come from falconers with a lot of experience and know exactly what to do. i would not advise rushing the training prosess rather be safe than sorry, look at little joe, a top export from sa and even hes had his fair share of hassels just like me. thats why we post on threads and not write books:lol:lol

good hawking

dylan

I agree Dyl, not to be recommend for beginners, after a few years one does however learn a few shortcuts. This musket was flown free on day 3 and made his first kill same day - house sparrow. Not the tames bird in the world but he was approachable no carrying etc. Day 4 chased a few ****ey birds and doves and "lost" on his 2nd kill mainly because we (Dylan and I) did not overexert ourselves looking for him and as he was a rehab bird that had flown into a window 3 days prior the quicker he could be released the better. You know I'm first in line when you write your book and based on all the posts and sound advice by Little Joe on this forum I'm sure Jannes has written at least the equivalent of two books by now :)
Trevor

[SANBoPC]

Of course it's not possible and anyone who thinks it is is deluding themselves.
A trained bird is one which is safe to fly loose regularly, is manned and tame in most daily conditions and has a certain predictability of behaviour which can more or less be counted on.
It's perfecly possible to have had that NZ falcon stooping in twenty minutes but it's not trained. Not by a long chalk.
I remember someone bringing a musket they'd found, to the Centre. Mima had a chick in her glove and as the guy opened the box, the musket, which was undoubtedly wild, flew directly to her fist and began feeding. It was very hungry indeed, but no more trained than that NZ.
I've trained some hawks in a pretty short time, a merlin in five days for example but twenty minutes?

'avin a laugh ain't yer?

MattSpar I agree that training and taming takes much longer. IMO its an ongoing thing. As I understand Fox we are talking a few days but the total time training to the point of stooping to the lure was +/- 20 min.

I flew a late trapped passage Lanner tiercel (Tswara)years ago, his first free flight was on day 3 (I don't believe at this stage more than an hour of training) and his first kill on day 12 (maybe total of 8 hours training). He was by no stretch of the imagination properly trained or tame, this came with time. I might add this was pre telemetry days, I flew Tswara for 3 seasons.

If you take your Merlin mentioned in your post how many hours of training over that 5 day period?
Trevor

[MattSpar]

If you take your Merlin mentioned in your post how many hours of training over that 5 day period?
[/quote]


Two and a half.

But then I'm obviously not the expert Nick is.

[Eagle-Eyrie]

I find birds learn more in the field than just basic a-b flights on creance. They very quickly learn that you mean no harm and offer security and an abundance of food weather they hunt or not. And as posted it can happen in a matter of hours hands on work over a period of a few days. Once you are able to read the hawk then it will tell you when to let it have its first free flight. And by the way trev its you who will have more to contribute to a book!

good hawking
dylan

[Little Joe]

I'm sure Jannes has written at least the equivalent of two books by now :)
Trevor

DEFINATELY not a beginner's manual - rather a "How Not To..." manual for the connoiseur falconer with a sense of humour :roll:

And you okes can stop taking the P.... now, it's hard enough already to have to bear the curse of having a big mouth and zero discretion! :D

[SANBoPC]

DEFINATELY not a beginner's manual - rather a "How Not To..." manual for the connoiseur falconer with a sense of humour :roll:

And you okes can stop taking the P.... now, it's hard enough already to have to bear the curse of having a big mouth and zero discretion! :D

PMSL :lol::lol: