Blooper Reel

[Ally]

Don't know if this has been done before, but thought some molt-season humor might be in order?

Blooper shots...dogs, hawks, rigs, whatever.

Imprint goshawk, might hunter: catch of the day? Pink flip-flop.

[Falconer54]

2014 hacked Peregrines, her first kill.

[Heero]

My best is a chicken wing (the kind you eat) caught by a kestrel. No pic, tho, wish I had taken one.

Slipped her on a group of starling, they flew off, she landed on the chicken wing they were huddled around. I whistled with a tidbit and she flew back carrying the wing to my fist with her.

Mike

[goshawkr]

I did not get a photo, but had my super keyed up imprint goshawk catch a kid's wading pool that wiggled when I stepped on it while stomping on brush.

[dboyrollz76]

Red tail took my hat, and flew into a tree and shreded the top befor he dropped it!

[GreenHawk]

No photo, but was out hunting a new RT for the first time with my sponsors sponsor. Had a squirrel in a tree with bunch of vines. Pulled vines to flush, dropped sunglasses, picked them up and heard something moving above me, looked up just in time to catch a nice branch with my face. YAY! Then, just to make it better, when I pulled the vine one last time, saw something furry bail out. Right behind it is my RT, the furry thing his the ground, RT hits it like someone dropped a 50 pound weight from top of tree. Redemption! I'm excited, fall/drag myself to him through the 15ft of head high briars, to see him proudly sitting on a dead, stinking, half eaten possum. Best. Kill(ish). Ever.

[Falconer_hopeful]

No pictures but my first kill ever with a bird was a crawdad.

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[Cobus1]

Again no pic but I was out trapping. Nets out and waiting for a Lanner. After several boring hours a Lanner appears in the sky. I rush out to put the bait out and wait for the stoop. Never happened. It was a plane. Your mind does play tricks on you.

[GreenHawk]

Cobus reminded me of these...

Getting a bird my apprentice year was like finding a needle in a haystack. IF we saw one and a passage, it wouldn't come down. IF it did, it had something wrong(broken foot, bad sick, etc.) None were capable of hunting squirrels.

On the way home one day, we saw a bird sitting on a pole, kinda late, but it was near a roost of a RT we had been watching. Worth a shot anyway, we drove by, dropped the trap and went and sat and watched. After a couple minutes of absolutely no movement of the "hawk" we moved closer and identified it as a ... decoy owl .

On another day, we saw a hawk sitting in a tree where a passage had been hanging out. We had the sun in our eyes, so all we saw was a silhouette. Looked a little big, and not quite right, but we dropped the trap anyway, just in case. Didn't even look interested after a couple minutes, so we moved closer, fearing to bump it. Finally got to where we got a really good look, and it was an Osprey .

[jm89]

Hawking pigeons off the roost at night with flashlights, my brother thought it would be funny to shine my head while I was turned around. Next thing I know, Bam!

[gemiller]

The moment I wish I had on film is my 3 year old daughter (monkey see monkey do) put on my gauntlet and carried her stuffed animal squirrel in her off hand and little stuffed red tail on the gauntlet. She went into the room the bird was chilling in, who instantly claimed the squirrel as quarry.

All I hear is my daughter balling that her bird didn't get to catch the squirrel cause "daddy's bird killed it". There my bird was on the perch defluffing her stuffed squirrel. I had to trade my bird of her stuffy while she screamed that her bird was going to starve to death... kids.. huh?!

[GreenHawk]

The moment I wish I had on film is my 3 year old daughter (monkey see monkey do) put on my gauntlet and carried her stuffed animal squirrel in her off hand and little stuffed red tail on the gauntlet. She went into the room the bird was chilling in, who instantly claimed the squirrel as quarry.

All I hear is my daughter balling that her bird didn't get to catch the squirrel cause "daddy's bird killed it". There my bird was on the perch defluffing her stuffed squirrel. I had to trade my bird of her stuffy while she screamed that her bird was going to starve to death... kids.. huh?!

That is hilarious! I kinda hope nothing beats this, not sure I can survive laughing any harder than I just did!

[jdrmd]

The moment I wish I had on film is my 3 year old daughter (monkey see monkey do) put on my gauntlet and carried her stuffed animal squirrel in her off hand and little stuffed red tail on the gauntlet. She went into the room the bird was chilling in, who instantly claimed the squirrel as quarry.

All I hear is my daughter balling that her bird didn't get to catch the squirrel cause "daddy's bird killed it". There my bird was on the perch defluffing her stuffed squirrel. I had to trade my bird of her stuffy while she screamed that her bird was going to starve to death... kids.. huh?!

GREAT STORY!!!!

[Ken S.]

It was cold and snowy, I was squirrel hawking and my hawk was chasing one around a large tree with lots of vines hanging down. I was pulling and shaking vines to keep it moving the best I could, and we worked into a stand-off with the squirrel trying to hold still in some vines and the hawk was leaning forward and watching just 15 feet away in an adjacent tree. I started pulling vines and shaking them, but I wasn't looking up the whole time because of the debris coming down into my eyes. As I was shaking and pulling the vines, I heard a noise above and looked up just in time to get slammed in the face by a huge branch that must have been hung up in the vines. The impact broke my nose, poked a hole through my upper lip, and bloodied up my teeth, ... and as I stood there leaned over spitting blood into the snow and trying to figure out what happened, the hawk flew down and landed on the ground to see what I was doing... and the squirrel got away. Looking at the size of the limb that came down, I was actually lucky not to have been hurt worse, but at the time I was just pissed we didn't catch the squirrel.

[wyodjm]

Years ago, my friend was flying his intermewd passage Redtail on cottontails in southwest Wyoming. He would turn the Redtail loose and it would follow as we tried to bump desert cottontails out of the rocks and sage brush. She was a great bird and was a very effective bunny hawk.

This one warm, sunny, fall afternoon the Redtail kept taking off and landing on the ground like she was after something. We could see her reach down and gulp something down each time, but couldn't tell what it was. After a couple of hours, we hadn't caught a bunny so he called her to the fist, fed her and we headed home. But we couldn't figure out what she was going after that afternoon.

That evening, the Redtail became very sulky and lethargic. She acted as though she was sick. We kept a close eye on her. The next day she was her old self again and was showing no signs of illness.

Later that day, she cast up a good sized, cemented ball of scorpion exoskeletons!! There must have been a half dozen of them in the casting. She must have swallowed each one of those scorpions whole and alive, stinging her in the throat and crop on the way down.

Still one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed with a falconry bird. I wish one of us would have saved that casting. It would have made a great souvenir.

[Ally]

A picture's worth a thousand words but...these are some great stories! Keep 'em coming, pictures if you've got them!

[GreenHawk]

Awesome Thread Idea BTW Ally. Thanks for starting it!

[joturley]

#1/ entered woodlot after snowshoe hare; had an urgent call of nature so turned the hawk loose and got 'busy'. At the critical moment, gos stooped me for my wad of toilet paper and bound to my bare hand and ripped it to pieces (wad, not hand <G>).

#2/in the woodlot after snowshoe hare; hawk at some distance. I walked into a springy branch that snaked up my nostril, then sprung back out, tearing the inside. Jets of blood everywhere! My mitts couldn't keep up with the flow, so dug kleenex out of my pocket. The kleenex turned sopping red, the gos seemed to think I'd caught a hare and was eating it myself and before I could blink & duck, bound to my face & ripped up the kleenex.

#3/juvenile HH out after grouse and/or snowshoe hare instead plucked a 14 inch jackfish out of the iced over shallow river.

#4/same hawk, different year, 'limped' out of a woodlot after several minutes with a plastic pop bottle. Another time found a tightly wrapped disposable diaper in the ditch while hunting gophers. Took it to the car roof and ran back and forth with it, refusing to trade off.

#5/cast of juvenile HH left the woodlot together for another woodlot across the road; made so much noise under a spruce tree I knew they had something special. Yeah - a partially filled bag of cheesies that they were scarfing down, their lips all fuzzy orange. Later in the month, same scenario - they remembered this wonderful kill and went within minutes to check it out again.

#6/imprint gos on a practice duck lost it a 1/4 mile from home. Tracked gos all the way home to find it had put itself through a discreet roof opening the size of a shoebox INTO its mews and was waiting on the perch for supper.

#7/ a golf ball retrieving HH made me have to reserve one particular woodlot until the golf season was over.

#8/ my sponsor's HH and my HH flown as a cast at snowshoe hare found a little, shallow pond with crystal clear ice and gave us a great show of ice skating after the little minnows they could see. I think my sponsor has a video of this. /jo

[harrishawk_79]

I was not a falconer yet but my father was and we went out together with his passage red.lesson is don't be cheap. So he was using the cheap non zip lock baggies. it was not a super cold day but cold enough his hand was warmer than the bag of tid bits. his red had just missed a bunny and he reached on to get a single tidbit and the whole bag stuck to his hand the red slammed it sinking his talons into his hand one went through and back in under the bone. my dad panicked and Bergson shaking the bird.I being only 12 was of course dying laughing at the shaking off the bird until I realized what was going on. Then we had to pull the talons out one by one

[kitana]

Hilarious stories, please keep them coming!!

No pictures, couldn't take any at the time, but this is the funniest catch of my hawk, and was the most infuriating as well!

Once I found my male Harris hawk gorging himself on moose meat.

The moose meat was in a cat food bowl, over which my hawk was mantling like crazy.

The cat food bowl was inside a house. A random house, not my house, not even a friend's house.

The owners of the house were inside the house as well, at least until the hawk entered, at which point they all agreed that running like hell to get out of the house, screaming their lungs out, was the best course of action.

The door through which the hawk entered and the owners got out was kept open by a moving company employees, who were emptying the house.

And the reason the hawk entered that house was to get away from a group of crows, as we were hunting maybe 500m from that lone house, into a wooden area.

You couldn't guess how fast a falconer can run 500m of very dirty, very dense wood with a dog in tow, cross a road, remove boots, give the dog to someone to hold onto, enter a house, find a hawk, grab it and then disappear.........

[Falconer_hopeful]

I am surprised this thread did not get more Posts. I forgot about it and just saw it, dicided to give it another shot.

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[Chasj87]

Glad you did Luke. Funny stuff. My first red tail caught a cottontail on our first hunt. Second hunt was a garden snake. Third was a grasshopper. It was a big grasshopper! However I wondered if we weren't moving in the wrong direction.

[Myles]

Just found this thread, it made my day

[robbeth]

Had a kestrel tail chasing a starling until it dropped a.French fry. then the kestrel proceeded to do a redtail style wing overand and slam it.

[Steve Jones]

About 20 years ago while out hawking grouse, running the dog, following along in my truck on a two-track. Dog went on point. Nice and solid, looked good. Went to put the falcon up... he wasn't in my truck. He was at home, hooded, sitting on the scale.

[Falconer_hopeful]

About 20 years ago while out hawking grouse, running the dog, following along in my truck on a two-track. Dog went on point. Nice and solid, looked good. Went to put the falcon up... he wasn't in my truck. He was at home, hooded, sitting on the scale.

That is great! lol.

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[piscivoris]

In the late 1970's I had a PMRT that was incapable of letting a piece of trash blow by on a breezy day. On one occasion he took a McDonalds wrapper in a very Goshawk like fashion, pursuing it from below then swooping up to make the capture.
The strangest part was watching him pluck his "kill", until it was fully shredded.
At that point he would walk around in circles checking out the numerous "plumes" looking for the meaty parts that should have been around there somewhere.
It took him almost the entire season to give up chasing paper, or the occasional leaf. Silly Birdie.

Live and learn is still applicable.

[kellerbomb]

Storm's best catch to date
https://youtu.be/7TCivphQaB8