Cooper's Hawk VS Ruffed Grouse= It's in the Bag

[Dan Paradis]

Faster than the eye my Cooper's caught this Ruffed Grouse running for cover, flown from the fist.:prayer: FINALLY

Here's a couple of pics.
Cheers

Dan

[ReluctantTwitcher]

Félicitations ! Vous avez gagné! :supz:

[HelenG]

Woohoo!! Congrats Dan, another great success for you!
That's a catch on par with your snow goose by goshawk.
Keep it up!

[Martyn]

Good catch and beautiful looking hawk

atb Martyn

[Rabadswompe]

super Dan!!!!!!! :supz:

[Kitana]

No way! Tell me it's unreal! I want one, can I get one? lol The environment appears to be pretty open, could you please describe the setup? Wood, no wood, etc... If I understand the grouse was running on the ground, didn't took flight?

Vraiment Dan c'est toute une réussite! Avec ton mâle? Si tu en fais ta routine, donne-moi encore une décennie pour prendre de l'expérience et j'en prend un!

[CanadaManada]

Nice!
Tell us about the flight!
RG is good eatin'!
Justin

[Barnaby]

cool maet nies 1 :supz:

[Dan Paradis]

We were walking along a wood edge and my idea was to reach the All Terrain Vehicule trail path further away when one grouse "lifted" without warning in a blink, by experience I can tell a RG is rarely alone in a case like that, as I got near the entrance of the path another RG was walking on the fallen dried out leafs making that typical crushing noise and then I have easily spotted it...so I let her go and with no attemp to fly the Hawk and I finally reached the trail to try to ambush from inside the woods. The grouse was standing still then moving slowly under a cleared up cover of pine and maple mixed trees then started to run on the ground that is when my Cooper's left the fist in a blast and bind to the grouse. The grouse was not even moving once caught like if it was petrified, it was standing still under my coops talons ! So I simply make in slowly to dispatch it. I took the pictures once back home as we drove a good distance with ATV. In fact you can see from the last picture a forest in the horizon that is were we caught the grouse.

Before that first wild kill I had at least 200 baggi kills of quails, chuckars and pigeons in different set ups simply for keeping the coop up and maintain its switch at "ON".

Next time I will favor an imprinted coop to a p/r as it is too high strung for nothing in my opinion.

Dan

[HawkMom]

RG are some of the best eating gamebirds. They are really, really tasty. Don't you just LOVE the Coop's golden orange eyes?

Great Flight!!!

[Ben C]

Before that first wild kill I had at least 200 baggi kills
Dan

Why so many baggies Dan? How were they 'served' and why not more 'wild' quarry?

These are not criticisms, but genuine questions from a small accipiter fan as well...:lol:

[Goran]

Nice!Congtrat's.

[Gav.Hawks]

smashing.please keep the thread going.atb gav

[Dan Paradis]

BenC what if you catch nothing after an outing ? that is why I serve a baggi. Then to show him what to look for I will place baggies in different set up scenarios and increasing difficulty levels up until the hawk is fit and keen enough to match wild games. I have found accipiters to be easy to switch off when not killing something in some kind of chase...

Also the intended quarries may not be as abundant than undesired ones. I am focussing on the Ruffed Grouse for about 3 years.

What about your thougts with accipiters ?

I have full croped him on the Grouse, for sure well deserved...but I have saved the brest for me !

[Hawking]

:twisted::prayer::supz:

Congrates Dan!

[Ben C]

BenC what if you catch nothing after an outing ? that is why I serve a baggi. Then to show him what to look for I will place baggies in different set up scenarios and increasing difficulty levels up until the hawk is fit and keen enough to match wild games. I have found accipiters to be easy to switch off when not killing something in some kind of chase...

Also the intended quarries may not be as abundant than undesired ones. I am focussing on the Ruffed Grouse for about 3 years.

What about your thougts with accipiters ?

I have full croped him on the Grouse, for sure well deserved...but I have saved the brest for me !



Hi Dan,

I see what you are saying. Thankfully it is different for myself as I have not or don't need to target specific quarry. So we have an abundance of 'wild' as well as released game.

I worried initially about when not killing on every outing, but thankfully this was not a problem after about 20 kills. In fact recently she had an injury and did not kill for 5 days, she did become aggressive, but also became very quiet as a result (don't ask me why, I am still learning). Also I have found that one day off hunting after a full crop helped a) raise the weight for the next outing b) allowed me to do training work and keep her from wandering off.

From what I have seen and had limited experience of, if the baggies are used too often then the hawk looks 'inward'. This is of course whne baggies re used badly. Can you explain the types of set ups you use so that the hawk does not start to look towards you rather than outward a quarry? As we are legally not allowed to use them it is good to learn something new from those that do.


Also all my observations are with euro spars so that may account for a big difference, also I have only done one imprint, flown one creche reared and flown another swap imprint, so this also might account for different behaviour.

Thanks in advance.

Ben

[SakerJack]

Great to hear Dan,, an eyass Coop?? Sounds like fun,, I raised one in 1982,, WAY BEOFRE ANY RECIPE,, face grabbin Mother Facker!! I would do things very much different now..
Keep it going!

[Dan Paradis]

Great to hear Dan,, an eyass Coop?? Sounds like fun,, I raised one in 1982,, WAY BEOFRE ANY RECIPE,, face grabbin Mother Facker!! I would do things very much different now..
Keep it going!

Was this a male or female you had ?

Well Ken I would consider him more like a passager than an eyass so to speak with execption of having no skills of a true passage bird. He was fully parent reared at our facility (chamber raised) but for sure next birds will be group reared if not imprinted...

did you finally got my DVD's ?

Cheers

Dan

[Mark Collins]

Way to go Dan ,two stunning birds there, looks a good match, mark.

[Dan Paradis]

Thanks Mark, I will tyr to film a pursuit sometime and post it

Dan

[SakerJack]

Was this a male or female you had ?

Well Ken I would consider him more like a passager than an eyass so to speak with execption of having no skills of a true passage bird. He was fully parent reared at our facility (chamber raised) but for sure next birds will be group reared if not imprinted...

did you finally got my DVD's ?

Cheers

Dan

It was a female,, I made lots of mistakes and when I look back it was ALL my fault but man she was quick but if she missed your face was the next target..
Still no DVD's

[Dan Paradis]

It was a female,, I made lots of mistakes and when I look back it was ALL my fault but man she was quick but if she missed your face was the next target..
Still no DVD's

Females of many species are much more aggressive that's a fact.

G» it is so long for the DVD's to hit your mail ???

[Ben C]

It was a female,, I made lots of mistakes and when I look back it was ALL my fault but man she was quick but if she missed your face was the next target..
Still no DVD's

What would you do differently SJ? Why do you think she was a face grabber?

[Ovambo]

very very nice indeed sir

[SakerJack]

What would you do differently SJ? Why do you think she was a face grabber?

Hey Ben, easy question to answer, I would never get another one. Seriously BC it was so long ago and I had just flown a passage gos,, and tried this coop, she was taken from the nest very young and hand raised in my home,, Don't remember much else, I flew her in barns at little dickie birds , if she caught them she was good but if she missed,,, Hell on wings,,Not much else I can recollect, but I still got the scars on my nose, twenty some years later.

[Ben C]

Hey Ben, easy question to answer, I would never get another one. .

HAHAHAHAHA :supz::supz:

[SakerJack]

Dan got the DVD's just watched the first one,, I need to learn French,, Nicely done

[Dirtwinger]

Hey Ben, easy question to answer, I would never get another one. Seriously BC it was so long ago and I had just flown a passage gos,, and tried this coop, she was taken from the nest very young and hand raised in my home,, Don't remember much else, I flew her in barns at little dickie birds , if she caught them she was good but if she missed,,, Hell on wings,,Not much else I can recollect, but I still got the scars on my nose, twenty some years later.
Passage is the way to go for a first Coopers for sure, certainly less work is required in the first season to get a managable hawk. Having said that the imprints can be excellent and I loved my eyass female she was a sweetheart and a hunting machine. If I could get an eyass Eastern female I would go that route again for sure, lots of quarry is the key. I never saw a lack of enthusiasm for specific prey she took prey from sparrow to mallard with equal gusto. Game birds in particular drive them wild that rapid wingbeat sets them off everytime they cant resist.

Well done on the grouse Dan I hope there are many more.

all the best Terence

[Migalon]

Fascinating to hear you guys describe the abilities of a hawk I have no hunting experience of, only seen it at a field meet twice in the UK and falconers would not let em go on both occasions. Great pity I thought, they were more like ornaments to pose with.

Mick

[Ben C]

Any updates?

[Dan Paradis]

too busy to start a fire :roll:

Later

Dan

[Ben C]

too busy to start a fire :roll:

Later

Dan

what a strange thing to say? I have no matches.

[Dan Paradis]

..it simply means I'm very busy at the moment I even do not have the time to complete this po...

[Ben C]

..it simply means I'm very busy at the moment I even do not have the time to complete this po...

:lol::lol::lol:

..............................st

[Dan Paradis]

Of course...sorry mid-November..my mistake

Thanks for the notice Yann

Dan

[Dan Paradis]

oops, pics again;

from the window of my dining room,, and the after math...

[Mark Collins]

Very nice Dan,fine looking coops,mark.

[Wilfred]

Very interestig thread. I myself would be very much interested to hear what is causing the agressiveness in coopers often talked about but mainly connected with this also of course how to prevent this. Any coopers hawk flyers or falconers having experience with them who can answer this question out of understandings?