Marcus, great reading. Great you have seen and personally know the great difference between flying wild Merlins, and our eyass trained ones, even hacked ones. Your observation about the wild ones catching them in the air, and our trained ones catching them on the ground is the biggest difference between Falconry birds and wild birds. Same can go for other Falcons as well. For instance, large falcons on dove, pigeons, starlings. I would also say on a positive note for our trained eyass birds, we can develop them into great gamehawks, and they are a bit more flexible in some areas. I am an old Falconer, with old ways. I haven't been big on OC, especially with Peregrines who don't always like to be trained so much, but seem to adapt and grow just flying on game, just my opinion and what I have experienced. I also believe these days, we seem as a whole, to overtrain our birds. This can have an affect of less enthusiasm, possibly aggression, through boredom. Birds are a lot like us, doing the same thing over and over again, can help the mind to go idle. New challenges excite and stimulate the bird, and just like us, they want to do more. I have been hit in the head lure stooping Peregrines by 4 different Peregrines, non of them imprints. 2 were passage. I had my reasons for stooping them, but they sure didn't see it that way. They let me know what they thought of being TRAINED. Been asked if it was just miscalculating or a mistake, yea right. They knew exactly what they were doing, and the point they were trying to get across. Maybe some of the newer OC, is great, just haven't had much use to try most of it. The old saying, don't fix it, if it ain't broke, comes to mind. Things have changed, how many people use traditional jesses, old leather leashes. I do believe in the newer equipment we have available, and technology. Anyway, not sure how much of my jibber was related to this thread.