Sunny in Seattle

..not really. ;)

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to stop by and say hello. I'm thinking about getting into falconry over the next few years in the Seattle area. (I live in Issaquah currently)

I have a background in the military and boyscouts and I grew up around nature. My family used to breed pet species of birds and my grandmother owned three pet shops. My grandfather got me into bird watching, as a child, and showed me that nature is more beautiful than anything man can build. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. Growing up around birds and wanting to make him proud, I've decided to take my interests up a "notch" and get into raptor hunting...or at least begin the long process of studying it. My goals are more on the conservation side of things as I am going to school to be an educator.

I moved to this state about a year ago, so I'm currently renting an apartment with my fiance. We plan on getting a home up here by this time next year. So in the mean time, I wish to devout my time to study. I have a technical job right now, and work from home, so I have lots of time to read during the day.

I consider myself an expert on freshwater fish. I was going to school to be a limnologist but changed my mind (as we often do in school). Currently, I have a 210 gallon aquarium setup with fish from the amazon, including a motoro stingray with a 12 inch diameter footprint. I like to think of myself as prepared for the sport of falconry. I have lots of experience with birds and maintaining exotic pets.

Right now, I am reading these books:

The Falconer's Apprentice - William C. Oakes
American Kestrels in North America - Matthew Mullenix
A Falconry Manual - Frank Lyman Beebe

My goal for this first year is to get my hunting safety class completed, and my small game hunting license from the state...and study, study, STUDY, STUDY!!!

After a year, I will look into the exam, after we find a nice house up here with a suitable backyard.

So, thanks for taking the time to read this long introduction! I will probably not post again, but I'll be reading everything YOU all post, every day. Consider me an official forum creeper...

Do you have any other suggestions? Perhaps better books I should study? Any information is appreciated and perhaps, I'll see a few of you with a raptor on my fist, in a couple years.

Thanks for your time.

Edit: I forgot to add that I'm looking at the kestrel for the future. So any books you can suggest including them specifically would be amazing!

Hi Josh,
WA has a pretty active state club with a picnic and 2 meets per year. I would suggest tagging along to those as they are a good place to meet people. Most people I've met so far in WA are friendly to new comers, some even went out of their way to introduce themselves (which i'd never seen in other states i've lived in) at the last meet I went to. WA also has quite a few people who fly kestrels from what I've heard through the grapevine. There are also quite a few people in the seattle area.

Really the only book about kestrels in American Kestrels in Modern Falconry. It's a real quick read but good information for someone with limited knowledge.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sink

..not really. ;)

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to stop by and say hello. I'm thinking about getting into falconry over the next few years in the Seattle area. (I live in Issaquah currently)

I have a background in the military and boyscouts and I grew up around nature. My family used to breed pet species of birds and my grandmother owned three pet shops. My grandfather got me into bird watching, as a child, and showed me that nature is more beautiful than anything man can build. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. Growing up around birds and wanting to make him proud, I've decided to take my interests up a "notch" and get into raptor hunting...or at least begin the long process of studying it. My goals are more on the conservation side of things as I am going to school to be an educator.

I moved to this state about a year ago, so I'm currently renting an apartment with my fiance. We plan on getting a home up here by this time next year. So in the mean time, I wish to devout my time to study. I have a technical job right now, and work from home, so I have lots of time to read during the day.

I consider myself an expert on freshwater fish. I was going to school to be a limnologist but changed my mind (as we often do in school). Currently, I have a 210 gallon aquarium setup with fish from the amazon, including a motoro stingray with a 12 inch diameter footprint. I like to think of myself as prepared for the sport of falconry. I have lots of experience with birds and maintaining exotic pets.

Right now, I am reading these books:

The Falconer's Apprentice - William C. Oakes
American Kestrels in North America - Matthew Mullenix
A Falconry Manual - Frank Lyman Beebe

My goal for this first year is to get my hunting safety class completed, and my small game hunting license from the state...and study, study, STUDY, STUDY!!!

After a year, I will look into the exam, after we find a nice house up here with a suitable backyard.

So, thanks for taking the time to read this long introduction! I will probably not post again, but I'll be reading everything YOU all post, every day. Consider me an official forum creeper...

Do you have any other suggestions? Perhaps better books I should study? Any information is appreciated and perhaps, I'll see a few of you with a raptor on my fist, in a couple years.

Thanks for your time.

Edit: I forgot to add that I'm looking at the kestrel for the future. So any books you can suggest including them specifically would be amazing!

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Josh,

Welcome to the Washington falconry community.

The Washington Falconers Asssociation has our annual summer picnic every year in July in Fall City. Quite close to home for you. It will be a great chance for you to meet falconers, and for you to see a few kestrels as well.

Details will be posted here: http://www.wafalconers.org

Be sure and say hi if you come to the picnic. I'll be pretty busy helping run it, but always interested in meeting new people.

The California apprentice guide helped me out the most. I took the Wa. test last june and the books you mentioned and the Ca. guide was enough to get me thru the test.

Thanks for all the quick responses!

I'm going to be reading the book on kestrels, as it seems to include a lot about the basics of falconry in it (trapping, care, diet, luring, etc). I think my next read will be the CA club's guide. I saw their website while looking into falconry in California (where I'm from).

I'm pretty excited about getting into this. I have always known about falconry, but didn't realize it was practiced in North America. I wish I would have learned about this a decade ago...haha!

Wow, is North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks really a $500 book?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sink

Wow, is North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks really a $500 book?

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It's a high demand out of print falconry book. If you keep at it you might find a copy for $200-$250. I picked up an extra copy recently for $200. In print it was $60ish. A new edition is supposed to be out eventually.

Don't pay 500 for that book.....way too much. $200 is closer, but the prices will drop again hopefully. Funny that NAFHH is going for more than desert hawking II or imprint accipt at the moment!

Haha, thanks guys!

Just posting an update: I'm still here and creepin' on all your posts. There is a ton of useful knowledge here. I've finished reading the three books I've found, and starting to re-read them all.

I'm getting married in January, this coming year. Hopefully, it doesn't slow my hobby goals down too much.

Hope you are all having a great summer, have fun!

Wow, I have almost the same backstory as you, Josh. I was studying Fisheries at Michigan State with the intent of going into Ichthyology before switching to Purdue and human biology. A lot of my interests also probably stemmed from Boy Scouts and the trips to the Boundary Waters/Quetico. I actually just started a thread today trying to figure out if I was alone in being more from the conservation/management side - hunting is just a bonus for me, not the central goal. Even the three books that you mentioned are 3 of the five that I picked up through the InterLibrary Loan system!

Hiya Josh!

My name's Wendy and I'll also (like Geoff/goshawkr) be at the WFA picnic. I'll be fairly easy to spot - I'll be the metalhead girl with black hair and a passage tiercel Harris running around telling jokes and laughing with everyone under the little picnic shelter (ask anyone who knows me; EVERYTHING has a potential source of humor in it, and by God I *will* find it and have me a darn good laugh).

I sure hope you can make it out there this summer; its on July 28th out in Snoqualmie (the Fall City/Preston exit off of I-90... be sure to get the directions off of the wafalconers.org website!) because if you show up early (@10am-11:30) I'll be putting on a pre-Apprentice/Apprentice 'class' before the lunch and auction. There's already slated to be a TON of newbies (both apprentices and pre-apprentices) there this year, so this is a GREAT time to get together and ask a million questions (and hopefully, get some answers).

As far as the class goes, I'll be showing examples of falconry equipment, hoods, explaining a bit about falconry terminology, the apprenticeship process, the natural history of commonly utilized species in Washington, among other things. There will be coffee and snacks (thank you Jayme!), so come early! :)

Anyways, if you need to contact me with more questions, feel free to PM me or you can email me (all my contact info is on the Board Page on the WFA website; I'm the Secretary, so I'm decently easy to find).

Hope you are enjoying our 60 degree Seattle 'summer-in-name-only' and again, welcome to Washington!

Thanks for the well wishes!

Scott, I am leaning towards a career path in the Forestry services up here. So, this is just one added step to enjoying the outdoors that I already love!

Wendy, I am going to try to make it for sure! I think the location is only like 10 minutes from me. Wizards has me working on the weekends, right now, but I'm still going to try to make it out, even just to say hello. I know I have a lot of time, at least a year, before I'm even in the market for a sponsor. However, I'm a researcher at heart, so learning more now is important to me.

I'm going to the Iron Maiden concert in Auburn next month too! Are you going? (you mentioned being a Metal Head)

Have fun!

\m/, ::fellow metalhead falconer fistbump:: ,\m/

I think you and me are gonna get along just fine! And your d*mn right I've got tickets to that show; I'll be in the first 10 rows of seats with 3 other buddies of mine (at least one of whom is having to haul over here from eastern WA/almost the OR border to make it!). I think I've caught every one of their WA area shows since 2005, including the ill-fated Black Sabbath-Iron Maiden co-headlining Ozzfest (which was a d*mn good show, LOL).

Let me know if you want to meet up and carpool in or something along with me and my buddies; escaping the White River parking lot after the show is legendarily irritating (imagine 10-20,000 people all trying to leave at once, and there is only ONE little two lane country road on which to head out on... oh, and its completely littered with randomly-timed little stoplights and State Patrol/tribal/Auburn police doing drunk driving inspections/traffic stops).

PS: Hope to see you at the picnic/and the show!

I'll be heading to the picnic this weekend, but I have to work...

I'll probably make it there around 5ish or so. I don't know anyone, so I'll be the tall guy with sideburns looking confused.

Will look for you. I was the fat redneck with the confused look last year. I was made very welcome by the good folks of our club.

Josh,

Wendy and I will both be busy trying to keep things running smoothly, but please do grab us and say "hey". We would love to meet you, wouldnt we Wendy?

Will do guys!

This probably sounds like an odd question, but they don't have wifi out there by any chance, do they?

I work 7:45-4:15 but I work off my laptop...so anywhere I can get a signal I can work! I may be able to borrow a mobile card off a friend, if so, I can probably make it out there when I start working. I won't be able to interact much, but I'll be able to sit through the workshops and listen. If it doesn't work out, I'll just cruise over. It's only about 15 minutes away from me!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sink

Will do guys!

This probably sounds like an odd question, but they don't have wifi out there by any chance, do they?

I work 7:45-4:15 but I work off my laptop...so anywhere I can get a signal I can work! I may be able to borrow a mobile card off a friend, if so, I can probably make it out there when I start working. I won't be able to interact much, but I'll be able to sit through the workshops and listen. If it doesn't work out, I'll just cruise over. It's only about 15 minutes away from me!

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If your that close, I would recomend that you pop over and see if you can get internet access before you commit.

Just wanted to post an update.

My fiance and I are getting married this Jan and are currently buying a house. We're moving to the Wilderness Rim in North Bend, right next to Rattlesnake Ridge (and Mount Si). Our back yard is fenced and pretty big, I want to say it's a 1/3 acre, very wooded too.

Since I've started my research, I have picked up a few more books (such as the new one by the Coulsons. I have also joined my state's club and been in contact with a couple of members. I'm still looking for a sponsor, or at least, someone to tag along with this season to absorb as much as I can via the hunt. The couple of contacts I've spoke to have apprentices at the moment, but one may have extra time for me after the 1st of the year.

If anyone has any leads, or would enjoy having someone tag along for a hunt, let me know. You can PM me and I'll give you all my info.

Hopefully, I can find a sponsor in my area before next year's season opening. At least, that's my plan. Right now, I'm going to start researching mews plans and looking at picking up some gear for xmas (as I'd prefer to space out my purchases, rather than buy it all over the summer at once).

Hope everyone is having a good season and that the winter is treating you right.