UK Goshawker Introduction

Hi all just thought I'd better finally introduce myself. I registered a while ago but have only just got around to posting. I'm Dave Parry and I live in Chester in the UK. I have flown goshawks (female, male, parent reared and imprints) for about 40years. Most of my earlier hawking was hunting rabbits but for the last 20 years or so I've hunted game (pheasant and partridge) exclusively. My current bird is an imprint male Finnish X Russian Goshawk and I've flown him for the last 3 seasons. I work German Wire haired Pointers with my hawks and I'm picking up a large parent reared 2020 Finnish female at the end of August. Females from this source have flown at around 48 oz's. I've included some links to my youtube channel which you may find interesting - it has some video's of flights at pheasant her in the UK and a 30 year old video of my rabbit hawking in Caithness with parent reared Finnish gosses. I used to go hawking in Caithness, northern Scotland every year. I really enjoy reading the posts on here and the forum is a great resource for falconers/austringers. Thanks for keeping it going! Atb Dave Parry

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BoHSKYjKdU
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L9rltDWaD8A
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fKecM77t8Zw

Nice, I just got my first Goshawk, praying for success so far so good. Enjoyed the videos got me lost in day dreams again.

Thanks Derek - success will come I'm sure - Goshawks are demanding but hugely rewarding. I've seen your thread - you seem to be doing fine so far. I hope you have a good season and its the first of many with your bird.

Thanks for sharing Dave. Great flights, I love watching goshawks on pheasant. I really want to hunt them this year. We'll have to see if I can work in some trips....

Thanks Ryan you're welcome. I think Pheasants are the perfect quarry for Goshawks and if you can keep that balance of stamina, fitness and motivation in your hawk they provide fantastic sport with good pointing dogs. Good luck in organising some trips this year :-)

Dave,

Can you talk more about why, after 40 years with goshawks, you are still flying both imprint and parent-reared birds? This is interesting, as it seems most austringers eventually grow to prefer one or the other. I have my own guesses. In the US, we are seeing an increased availability of parent-reared goshawks, whereas in the past we were largely limited to imprinted gentilis, albidus, and buteoides.

Hi Dillon - ok I'll give it a try..... the majority of my birds have been parent reared females but I have flown a number of imprint male Finnish birds, including the one I am currently flying. Many of my friends fly imprints (male and female) and there is much to commend them. In reality both imprint and parent reared birds are still Goshawks and with the different training approaches that are necessary based on their psychological development differences, are designed to achieve the same ends but via different routes. The level of enjoyment provided by both is different at the extremities - by that I mean that the more irritating traits of some imprints (minimised by the correct conditioning of these birds and sometimes not present at all) has its compensations in other aspects of their behaviour. My current male can be quite vocal - albeit that this is reducing year on year - however his tameness and the degree to which it is possible to relax when flying him is a big plus. His level of tameness is such that he will actually play. With parent reared birds in my experience you start in a different place - the bird is rarely tame and the undesirable behaviours (those of wildness and fear of the unfamiliar) have to be erased by manning and different conditioning (although it does substantially overlap )- which works well if done correctly. With some exceptions birds are rarely as vocal and mantle less - but this can vary too. I suppose the reason I fly both types is because I like both and I don't see it as a mutually exclusive choice - rather that I would prefer to experience the characteristics of both than experience those of only one. I hope that makes sense but please ask if anything doesn't. Best regards Dave

Dave,

I have a couple of questions. Was that a cocker in the longer video? And secondly, ever have any problems with two goshawks in the field at the same time?

Hi Edmund - no it wasn't a cocker it was a small English Springer Spaniel bitch called Dandy. Working Springers tend to come in a lot of different shapes and sizes as they are bred for working ability not to conform to an artificial cosmetic standard. I have had problems with 2 Goshawks in the field at the same time yes - but only due to mistakes in slipping order made by falconers. Both birds are then destined to come together on the same kill which can lead to disaster. The friends I go hawking with make a point of clipping birds that are not flying to the glove to prevent such accidents. Occasionally you can find that some birds ( usually imprints) will try to take a bird off another falconers fist but these incidents are in my experience rare. Best regards Dave

Welcome to the forum Dave, it’s always fun to hear what other goshawkers are doing and especially from other parts of the world.

Thanks Mitch :-)

Here's my male imprint - 50/50 Finnish/Russian Attachment 9125 not sure if I'm uploading correctly so forgive me if it doesn't work

Great videos Dave thanks for sharing

Thanks Mark :-)

Just finished watching your Caithness video, so much better than some of the usual videos out there. I see some where you blink and its caught a rabbit, not giving the bird a flight. Some of your flights are a decent distance, you can see that the bird has had a workout. Thanks again very refreshing!

Thanks Mark - the nature of the land helped and the fact that these rabbits were flushed with spaniels - a real challenge for the hawk sometimes as they would invariably flush upwind - more of a challenge than rabbits bolted by ferrets. These rabbits were generally very 'hawk wise' - you can see the escape tactics on some of the misses where the rabbit ducks around a tussock and freezes until the gos passes - then makes its exit. There were a lot of buzzards in the area even though it was filmed about 30 years ago when the population was a lot lower nationally - they clearly hunted rabbits. I'd cut some of the flights if I did it now and some of the text, - it was filmed on SVHS tape which was the best available to me at the time - still there are some pretty good flights. I digitised it and loaded it onto youtube for people who are interested rather than have it deteriorating in a cupboard- thanks for the feedback. Atb Dave

Heres another pheasant flight - parent reared female :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3adckPxTg

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Originally Posted by Gentilis

Heres another pheasant flight - parent reared female :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3adckPxTg

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Very nice Dave another quality flight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gentilis

Thanks Mark - the nature of the land helped and the fact that these rabbits were flushed with spaniels - a real challenge for the hawk sometimes as they would invariably flush upwind - more of a challenge than rabbits bolted by ferrets. These rabbits were generally very 'hawk wise' - you can see the escape tactics on some of the misses where the rabbit ducks around a tussock and freezes until the gos passes - then makes its exit. There were a lot of buzzards in the area even though it was filmed about 30 years ago when the population was a lot lower nationally - they clearly hunted rabbits. I'd cut some of the flights if I did it now and some of the text, - it was filmed on SVHS tape which was the best available to me at the time - still there are some pretty good flights. I digitised it and loaded it onto youtube for people who are interested rather than have it deteriorating in a cupboard- thanks for the feedback. Atb Dave

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I know what you mean about the ground Dave, I am lucky enough to fly on Dartmoor and Bodmin moor very similar ground but not quite so many rabbits. But great fun when walking up with dog and hawk.

Nice work by that springer- matches well with the goshawk. They are great falconry dogs that are capable in a wide range of hunting scenarios. We dont see them used much in the US.

:-)

Thanks for the comments guys - the Springer is a great dog for rabbiting in this type of land. Dandy would quite often 'set' before the flush providing notice of the flush. She was a real one off - I worked a lot of springers over the years but despite them being fantastic dogs I prefer HPR's for hawking game with a Gos. I've trained Wire-haired Vizsla's and GWP's - both are terrific to work with. I'll see if I have any more videos worth posting and put them up. atb Dave

It's funny. I like both but I've always enjoyed the spontaneity of the flush with a flusher over the more seemingly controlled set up of a pointer but I enjoy hunting over both. So maybe I need both!

Hi Isaac - yes I know what you mean - they have different strengths for sure. Springers excel in some situations where HPR's find things more difficult - Springers are great for really rough ground where they need to hit cover hard to put the quarry under enough pressure to make it flush. I find one of the the downsides is that to work them best they need constant direction, turning them on the whistle etc (they get better at working more independently with experience) which means you almost need to concentrate more on the dog than the hawk. Don't get me wrong - they are brilliant dogs but when, after years of working them , I saw some really good GWP's work with hawks I saw the extra advantages in working them. My hawks would also be so keyed up anticipating the flush when working spaniels that the birds would often bate to follow the dog as soon as it dropped out of sight. Often this would be at the wrong moment with the game flushing when the hawk hadn't regained the fist - with relatively open ground like that in the Caithness video the differences are marginal. Great sport can be had working both but I think if you have only one dog the good HPR is difficult to beat in terms of the outcome we are all looking for - the development of the hawk to its maximum potential. If however you can maintain both an HPR and a springer you certainly would have all the bases covered!!