New guy

[scarlett92584]

Hi all. I am looking at becoming a falconer. If anyone has any info to help me get started.

[Saluqi]

Hello,

Welcome to NAFEX, please include your name with your posts, keeping things on a first name basis keeps things friendly. California has a ton of falconers, just Google CA Hawking Club and buy their apprentice study guide. Also look up the modern apprentice web page, lots of good info.

[scarlett92584]

OK thanks. Yeah I thought this would be a fun sport. I already do Shutzhund with my GSD (German Shepherd Dog) and this seems very much like that except my dog cant fly. LOL

[everetkhorton]

(welc)We need a name to go with the face ;) There is a lot of information on this site. Have fun and keep us posted.

[Dirthawking]

OK thanks. Yeah I thought this would be a fun sport. I already do Shutzhund with my GSD (German Shepherd Dog) and this seems very much like that except my dog cant fly. LOL


Actually, from what I understand of Shutzhund, Falconry is nothing like it.

Welcome to NAFEX. Hopefully somebody from the CA area near you will chime in. You can go to user CP and edit your signature to have your first name come up automatically.

Tell us how you became interested in falconry.

[scarlett92584]

I didnt mean literally. Just the training time spent with the animal to form a bond and trust.

[scarlett92584]

I dont know I always have been fascinated with intelligent animals and the things that you can have them do, I also love the outdoors and hunting and there was also that movie when I was a kid with that guy that had that bird. Anyway I think it would be a great and challenging sport/hobbie/job.

[Chris L.]

Hello,

what is your name

[scarlett92584]

Shawn Scarlett I live in menifee, ca near Temecula.

[PeteJ]

After you do some further research you may find that this sport is not quite what you may be thinking it is right at this moment. While the birds are trained to a certain extent, the extent of that training is based on a certain biological fact...they want to eat. In general birds are very fast at learning how to exploit what they perceive to be free food. We take advantage of that fact basically for one reason...so that we can retrieve them once we let them free to hunt. If they catch something and won't let us retrieve them then the bond would be quite short-lived right? So, to some extent your dog training will help you to understand one fairly critical part of all this....discipline is based on how many times you can replicate the behavior. So, for the retrieving part that is pretty critical. But once you let the bird loose then all bets are off as far as how much control you actually think you have. The variables are immense once you are back in the wild with the bird. And often, under those conditions, your training, no matter how good you think it was, may not bring the bird home. The birds, even if they are captive produced and hand reared are never actually quite domesticated in the same sense as a dog. They still come with tons of instinct, which we are quite fortunate they have I might add, so the hunting part is actually sort of an undeniable drive that they have. Birds that have been trapped really come with everything you'd need to succeed if you can just get them to the point where you can A.) pick them up afterward and B.) have some sense of where they can best apply their trade (hunt).
Hopefully you will appreciate the challenge involved. Good luck on getting started...the beginning can be daunting and has nothing to do with the birds themselves...you'll see why.

[scarlett92584]

No I totally understand the difference between hunting for food and hunting on command. My dog bites on command because I trained him to and he knows where the food comes from. I think the bird is similar in the fact that if I feed him he will see the easy meal and will want to return to me and hunt for me the difference is the bird can feed himself and my dog cannot so I need to get the bird to understand that the safe and predictable meal is coming back to me and performing to get rewards. Do I have this right? I think it would be a great challenge. Thank you for the in site.