eightbitferrets

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Meet Deckard! He’s a 2018 Coulson’s harris hawk. I can’t wait to see what this little speedy boy can hunt! https://www.instagram.com/p/Boa0YeFhTBq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1o63e1fdrqx1x

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Managed to get a double within a few minutes of each other and out of the same nest. Gambit was on fire 👌🔥 (there’s more pictures on the instagram post)

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Sunday mornings with Freya 💤

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Sunday morning with Freya 💤

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Sharpie/micro lure I finished up last night 👍 #falconry #falconryfurniture #diy #sharpshinnedhawk #microfalconry

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My favorite picture of Gambit from last season made it on the back cover of THA's On the Wing! Also a cameo of Gambit's new hood made by Dennis Samnee! #falconry #redtailedhawk #hawk #hunting #raptor #birdofprey #texas

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Sorry for our absence from tumblr since the season started. Gambit is better than ever in his second season with me! I'll post updates soon, but until then, enjoy my favorite picture of him this season on a squirrel!

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Red-tailed hawk and falconer hunting at sunset

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Falconry

the sport of hunting with falcons or other birds of prey; the keeping and training of such birds.

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Tear your jesses off and have a great 2017!! Nobody hates neon jesses more than Cooter…he seems to prefer natural colors.

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A post shared by Jade. (@birdsjade)

Dinosaur (aka wedge-tailed eagle)

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Falconry based abatement is my dream job 😬

As a professional falconer, Rosen has trained all of her birds, which now number close to a dozen. Her brood includes Ziggy, a hybrid prairie-gyrfalcon. (Jon McPherson for Napa Valley Vintners)

Excerpt:

On a late summer afternoon, a sudden silence descends upon Bouchaine Vineyards in California’s Napa Valley. Moments earlier, a trio of songbirds sat chirping and pecking away at a cluster of ripe Chardonnay grapes dangling from one of the vines at the 84-acre wine estate. Now the only sounds are their wings flapping in the afternoon breeze. The reason for their quick getaway becomes apparent as a falcon swoops down from the cloudless sky and lands on his master’s forearm, which is sheathed in a thick, elbow-length leather glove.

Rosen is the owner and one of several falconers at Authentic Abatement, a bird-control services firm in Napa Valley that counts half a dozen vineyards in the area as its clients. Her falcon Ziggy is a “lure bird,” meaning his job is to scare off pest birds like starlings from the area—not hunt them. Rosen has trained Ziggy, a hybrid prairie-gyrfalcon named for the David Bowie song, to follow a piece of leather attached to a length of cord that she swings back and forth over her head. The lure’s movements mimic that of a bird, and drive the falcon to do multiple sweeps of the vineyard.

Vineyards love Rosen’s birds, too. Running a vineyard is no joke: Here in Napa Valley, the heart of winemaking country, wine sales bring in more than $13 billion each year—meaning the stakes are sky-high for vintners to protect their lucrative harvest. Vintners find themselves in a near-constant battle with insects, disease and other pests that threaten their business. One of those threats is grape-gobbling pest birds, which treat vineyards as an all-you-can-eat buffet and can potentially decimate an entire crop in no time.

Over the years, vintners have turned to a variety of newfangled deterrents to stop that from happening—including noisy air cannons, ribbons of mylar tape, netting draped over the vines, speakers, and air dancers (those creepy looking inflatable tubes you see gracing auto dealerships nationwide). But some are now returning to a time-tested method that requires no fancy tech: falconry. The ancient avian sport, which began in the Far East around 1700 B.C., later came to be called “the sport of kings.”

In recent years, several falconry companies have sprouted up in the area as demand for new ways to drive out pests has increased.  It turns out that despite modern advancements, there’s nothing quite like a scary predator bird to keep other birds at bay for good.

“Falconry is the one thing that no bird is going to get accustomed to,” says Rosen. “The last thing a bird wants is to be eaten.”

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^this

Do me a favor? If you’re strictly a bird blog, (as in you only post bird related content, be it parrots, wild, companion, birds of prey, or any kind of avian) please reblog this and I’ll check your blog out and maybe follow. I could always use more birds on my dash.

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All his derpy splendor… I just can’t take him seriously when I turn around and see this face.

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Ender on the lure. :)

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Mystery Paint Job Saw this post on another group and thought for sure it was fake…is this some kind of dark morph Cooper’s!?😮

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Life is good.