Gyr/Saker stooping the lure

[awahl]

My son took a few pictures while I was stoping the falcon to the lure this morning. They turned out pretty good.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8523-1.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8524.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8525.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8526.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8527.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8528.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8529.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8530.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8532.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8533.jpg

My hawkin pals

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8537.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8538.jpg

[Falcon Boy]

Great pictures! What weight is she flying at now, and is she still screaming? Has she taken any game yet?

[awahl]

1300 grams (about 46 oz). She is noisy. It has gotten worse as of late. She is flying well, but has yet to connect. She's only had four wild slips, and a lot of bags. Next decent slip is dead. I have had a hell of a time finding game this year. Ducks are now here, and some new pheasant areas are now available, so things should begin to come together.

[Rudd]

Great pictures Andy.

[awahl]

Not too bad for an 8 year old!

[sevristh]

Not too bad for an 8 year old!


Pretty damn awesome for an 8 year old!! Great pics!clapp

[Jimmy]

Great pics!

[awahl]

Thanks guys. I would much rather have a picture of her on game though...

[Jimmy]

Yeah, we would too...... but that's a great start!

[awahl]

Soon... very soon. Today is heavy rain and 25-30mph sustained winds with gusts to 40. Harris hawk at the park?:)

[everetkhorton]

Andy:
Great Looking Picutres. Thanks for posting. Nice seeing the kids along.

[wesleyc6]

Just great!!!! Thanks for sharing those Andy!

[Chris L.]

Andy very nice.. clapp.. thank you so much for sharing them.

[sharptail]

Andy, nice bird, nice pic, great Kids! The bird is fairly dark, does that come form the Gyr side or the saker?

[awahl]

Well, dad is a white gyr. Go figure! Her head is pretty white. I am excited to see what she moults like. In my opinion, and with never seeing a pure saker fisrt hand, I think she looks very much like a pure saker, with a white head.

[Falcon Boy]

Here is a picture the breeder sent me of my birds mom, not sure if she is the same as yours since my birds dad was a silver gyr-

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i278/apprenticefalconry2/mother.jpg (http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i278/apprenticefalconry2/mother.jpg)

[awahl]

I'm surprised that the legs are not that dark. I thought they were usually dark. She reminds me of the peregrine prairies that I used to make. Very similar facial coloration.

[Falcon Boy]

DOC = yellow legs and feet, my birds dad had yellow feet too and he is a pure gyr.

[lcfalconer]

Great Pictures!

The landscape brings back some memories for me. I spent a week in Chico California gun hunting ducks back in 1999. The limit on sprig was three a day back then, seven ducks total and we had no problem shooting limits. Northern California is a spectacular place!

Wayne

[raptrlvr]

Andy, tell your son he did a great job on the pictures. His timing on a bird flying that fast was super.

[awahl]

Noah, I'm sorry, I don't know what DOC is?

Wayne, A few years aog, there were lots of pheasants around, heck last year there was. This is a horrific year for game in general around here. Even jacks are very hard to find. It is a nice place to live though. Chico is a clean neat city with everything you need, but it still has the small city feel.

Jim, Thanks. I sure will tell him. He reads through some posts every morning with me.

[MikeT307]

Andy, tell your son he did a great job on the pictures. His timing on a bird flying that fast was super.

Yeah, his photos are better then what I got when I was trying to photograph my sponsor's longwing.

Oh, and DOC is "day old chick"

[awahl]

Oh thanks Mike. I guess that I should have figured out that. I guess I was referring to the feathered parts of her legs. She shows no signs of yellowing as of yet. I have never really fed chicks. I found a good source for good quality quail nearby and am happy with the way the birds fly while being fed them.

[sharptail]

Your Hybred flys heavier than my passage Gyr. She flys at about 45 oz.

[sharptail]

Here is a picture the breeder sent me of my birds mom, not sure if she is the same as yours since my birds dad was a silver gyr-

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i278/apprenticefalconry2/mother.jpg (http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i278/apprenticefalconry2/mother.jpg)

This is a pic of my daughter, Katie, and a Jamieson berd Saker Falcon, fresh out of the chamber.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w285/sharptailgrouse/scan0038.jpg

and this is a Black Gyr/Saker tiercel out of her.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w285/sharptailgrouse/scan0071.jpg

and this is a 3/4 White, tiercel, out of her.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w285/sharptailgrouse/SharptaillureRiverPapaandBlake043.jpg

[everetkhorton]

Jeff:
Great pictures of the kids and the birds. Alway nice to see the family getting involved. Thanks for the post.

[awahl]

Great pictures of the kids and the birds. Alway nice to see the family getting involved. Thanks for the post.

I second that! Sorry it took a while to get back to this post. It has been a mess up here.

Her weight is slowly increasing. Right now she is good between 45-46, but her manners are better a little higher.

The saker your daughter is holding does not look too dark. I know that there are some dark ones (altai) and some lighter ones. She is a litle darker overall than most that I see. Her feathered leggings (for lack of a better word) are very dark similar to a ferruginous. No light color at all in them.

Does your passage gyr have a long tail also? Her tail is about 3 feet long!

[sharptail]

The Saker is not Alti subspecies. The pair that Jamieson had were light or golden headed and not all that large. As I remember Steve Babtiest had the much nicer Saker stock.

My Gyr has a much shorter tail by comparison, for her size.

The 3/4 has an amazingly long tail. It seems to be constantly getting bent, and he broke 1 on his first kill. We did a better job getting him off of his second Kill recently. I have streghtened his tail several times this season. I hate to have to keep him so very sharp, but he sand bags terribly if his weight is allowed to rise.

[sharptail]

The 3/4 Gyr/ Saker Tiercel has close to the same tail length as the intermewed Gyr Falcon. The Gyr flys at about 45 oz. and he about 32 oz.. The Tiercels tail legnth did not change with the moult, as many falcons do.

[awahl]

I really like how she flies and her attitude toward hunting. She is very intelligent, and figures out things very quickly. But her manners are atrocious, and her screaming grates on my nerves. I got her knowing she had some issues, so its not a surprise, but I am going to begin trying to figure out operant conditioning to eliminate the screaming, or at least cut it down a bit. If I succeed, I will write a book!crazyy She is built like a tank, and has a gear I have never seen in any of the birds I have flown.

I am not a big lure stooping guy. In fact, this is the first bird I have done it with in 16 years. She has a move when stooping the lure that is amazing for such a big bird. She slides to the inside and pops the lure going out. When she does that, I can't make her miss. Maybe its me not being very good, but either way, it is impressive to me.

[Falcon Boy]

Goose tried that a few times, he would try and make it seem like he would fly into me, because one time he did on accident and i dropped the lure. [falcon going 100mph hitting your side HURTS] After that he'd aim at me and then jerk out towards the lure last second. What i did was make the swing go up sharply as he tried to do it towards the end of the swing which would make him go upside down trying to get it, and he soon figured out other methods were easier than flying upside down. Does that make sense?

[sharptail]

I quit lure flying River because he would rather fly the lure than be entered. He is amazingly good at it, with very high pitch-ups and a lot of style. I would like to be able to, but do not see doing it this side of 10 head.

[awahl]

That weird Noah. My bird hit me once as well. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Jeff, beileve me: I would much rather fly game than stoop the lure, but I do like the fact that I can still give her a good workout when game is sparse (or time is sparse). She goes after anything I flush like a bat outta hell. If I ever see a drop in her effort, I will most likely shut it down too. Here is another bag I threw for her yesterday.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8582.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8581.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/andywahl/102_8578.jpg

[sharptail]

Andy, I was not suggesting that you should not lure fly, just commenting about MY bird. It sounds like yours will be much easier to enter than mine, and I wish you nothing but the best. Keep us informed.

[awahl]

I know that you weren't Jeff. Sounds like you have lots of experience with the gyr saker hybrids. Do you choose them in particular for a specific reason? This is my first one, and I would surely consider another as I am very excited about her potential, and her ability.

I have experience with a couple of peregrines, several peregrineXprairies, a couple of passage prairies, an imprint prairie, a barbary, peales barbary, and a gyr peregrine that I have now. The gyr saker seems more intelligent than any of the others that I have worked with. Is that a normal trait for them?

[sharptail]

Intelligents for sure. The Gyr/Sakers, all Tiercels were all gifts form Mr. Dan, here in Wyomng, after placing the Saker in his project, not that he owed any thing to me. If I had my druthers, I would pick prue breds every time.

[awahl]

Was the saker a hitter of a binder? Seems like they might be similar to a prairie and want to hit. I have not seen enough of my bird to know. I have seen both hits and binds. One thing that she does that I am not sure about is coming down in a full stoop, and hitting the birds a little, then flying them down. A couple of times she has knocked them down, but only a couple. On the wild slips that I have given her, this is why she has not connected. She is getting outdistanced by them. I am certain that she could catch up to them and catch them, but she isn't. I hope it stays that way.

[sharptail]

She was a hitter. One of her favorite things was to check at pigeons on a barn and ring them up into the sky until a youngster would panic and bail for the barn below. She would stoop and catch it as it entered the barn.

[awahl]

Sounds like a tiercel peregrine prairie I had. The only difference is that he would commonly catch them on people's doorsteps. He would go up, find a housing track with pigeons, and make a beeline for them. I would track him down later on someone's doorstep eating a fresh pigeon. In his first year, I stopped counting at 35 pigeons. That is along with an additional 32 dove, and other misc stuff. He was very successful.