New Forum member from No. Cal.

[kurtp]

Hello,
Kurt Popke here. I've been an active falconer since I turned 16 back in 1978.
Corinne was my first apprentice and I agreed to sign off on her apprenticeship if she would agree to marry me. We've been together for 24 years, got a late start with kids, now have three, aged 8, 11 & 14.
Currently we are flying three harris' hawks; one 19 year old captive bred male my wife has had since it left the chamber, two passage birds we trapped in Arizona last year (one male and one female).
We live in the Sacramento, California area.
I am certainly glad my current apprentice told me of this site, as I can see it is a great resource for information.

Kurt

[hawkerev]

Hey Kurt,

Welcome to NAFEX, cool story !

[Chris L.]

Hello,
Kurt Popke here. I've been an active falconer since I turned 16 back in 1978.
Corinne was my first apprentice and I agreed to sign off on her apprenticeship if she would agree to marry me. We've been together for 24 years, got a late start with kids, now have three, aged 8, 11 & 14.
Currently we are flying three harris' hawks; one 19 year old captive bred male my wife has had since it left the chamber, two passage birds we trapped in Arizona last year (one male and one female).
We live in the Sacramento, California area.
I am certainly glad my current apprentice told me of this site, as I can see it is a great resource for information.

Kurt

HI Kurt,

Welcome to NAFEX. I hope you find NAFEX a great place.. Thank you for the kind words about NAFEX.

Please share your hawking adventures and we always enjoy pictures.

Welcome aboard

Chris

[Zarafia]

Welcome to NAFEX, Kurt!
As a fellow HH enthusiast I'm very interested in hearing about your experiences and hunting adventures.
I'd love to see you or your wife post a thread on her 19 year old male! It's somewhat rare to hear from falconers who have had and flown the same bird for so many years. I'd love to hear more about his life with you guys; his hunting history, his behavior as it developed over the years and the relationship he has with your wife and yourself.

[kurtp]

HI Kurt.....Please share your hawking adventures and we always enjoy pictures.

Welcome aboard

Chris

Thanks for the kind welcome. I have tried to figure out how to attach pictures. I can't find the "albums and pictures" link on the User CP page that is mentioned in the FAQ thread. I am familiar with that technique of posting photos from reef tank and fishing forums I belong to.
I guess the only way to do it here is to use a site like photobucket and then paste frome there. I tried joining photobucket, but my computer lacks the appropriate software and when I tried to download the program that photobucket recommended nothing happened...Old computer, even older user....I'll keep working at it.


Kurt

[kurtp]

Welcome to NAFEX, Kurt!
As a fellow HH enthusiast I'm very interested in hearing about your experiences and hunting adventures.
I'd love to see you or your wife post a thread on her 19 year old male! It's somewhat rare to hear from falconers who have had and flown the same bird for so many years. I'd love to hear more about his life with you guys; his hunting history, his behavior as it developed over the years and the relationship he has with your wife and yourself.


'Eastwood' has been a member of our family for a long time. I have a low tolerance for screamers (I usually fly passage birds) and to try to minimize that behavior in Eastwood, we didn't pick him up from the breeding chamber until after he was hard penned. We kept him pig-fat for several months after we got him, and then really only cut him down very little when we introduced him to active hunting. This worked out very well as he hardly ever screams.

We have always flown him fatter than any other bird we've ever had because he always is very responsive, and while he has never been the most aggressive hunter, he still catches plenty of game and is a real pleasure to be around, both in the field and at home. As he is getting older we have been less concerned about him going all out after any jack we flush and fly him even heavier. It's become a really relaxing outing, Corinne, the kids, dogs and I taking the old man out for a low-key hunt, somewhat like taking a favorite dog for a walk. We have very few bunnies in our area, and he has been mostly a jack rabbit bird, though he'll try for just about every sparrow/little dickie bird that stays on the ground as we approach (he manages to grab about a dozen during the course of a season). He loves pheasant and has ground-sluced several over the years. We tend to avoid fields that have pheasant in them, though, because once he sees one, he usually ignores any jacks we get up as he tries to find another pheasant.

His only down-side is that he hates other Harris hawks. We've tried several times to fly him in casts, but he always winds up crabbing with the other birds. We've had two other HHs for almost a year now, and perch them all out together often. We had hopes that would get him over his bad attitude, but it didn't. We sure wish we could get him to change that aspect of his behavior as flying him with our other two birds would be a great way for him to ease into retirement, but so far we've had no luck. (Any suggestions?)

Kurt

[kurtp]

Here's a photo of old man Eastwood from last season....


http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s648/kcpopke/Eastwood_zpsad2d357c.jpg