Collection Review: CollectA and Papo Birds of Prey

Figure Brand: Papo & Schleich

Figure Name(s): Hawk (50165)
Peregrine Falcon (14633)
Bald Eagle (14634)

Sex: Hawk- Female
Peregrine Falcon – Female
Bald Eagle – Male

Name: Hawk - Earna- Old English, The Mighty eagle
Peregrine Falcon - Anis- Moroccan ‘Friend of Loneliness’
Bald Eagle -  Emrys- Welsh for Immortal

Year Made: Hawk - 2015
Peregrine Falcon – 2012-2017
Bald Eagle – 2011-2017

Observations/Thoughts:
These are wonderful birds and work really well together in both context of a post and on a collector’s shelf as they are all birds of prey.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The first one is Earna the Papo Hawk. Overall, she has a flat looking, with a long horizontal shape because she’s posed to look like she’s in the gliding or hovering pose. Nice to see the different and realistic posing on a figure like this. She has lovely slender grey wings, that are both stretched out flat because she has adopted the gliding pose. Though to ensure she remains upright, Papo chose to balance the figure on an alpine rock which is very fitting for her habitat etc..
Earna has slate grey wings with even realistic patterns that look like little dark charcoal squares and indeed a frankly squarish tail as hawks generally do I suppose? She has a pale beige cream underside, which is also patterned in dark speckled feathers. Her head and face are sculpted very well, her facial features look very sleek but also kinda soft? She has soft and faint looking grey stripes from her eyes to temples which are a nice little detail to add and look realistic enough
Papo do very well with birds anyway and once again, they have done excellently with Earna the hawk, she’s in a different pose, but for a bird like her, I think it works very well. I called her Earna which in Old English means ‘The Mighty Eagle’, even though she isn’t an eagle perse, I do think it suits her very well.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Next is Schleich’s Peregrine Falcon, Anis. For me, Schleich’s peregrine falcon is a close winner too, as for once they are on level with Papo taking realism into account with this bird species.
Unlike the Papo Hawk, this Falcon is posed to look as though she’s perching on a branch, not a rock, and adopts a more upright pose which is probably meant to seem as though she’s landing/taking off with her wings up and partially spread. Her colour is more brown grey, but still with a cream beige underside and speckled feathers, again similar to the hawk which is to be expected with birds of prey.
Her head and markings however don’t seem to be as concise as Papo’s hawk however, they seem a little cloudy?
Anis is a retired model which is a shame, as I wish Schleich would commit to sculpting a bit more birds like Papo do? The best moulded ones like Anis here and Emyrs my bald eagle are both retired models which is a shame as in my opinion they are beautiful and realistic models.
I called my falcon ‘Anis’ as in Moroccan it apparently means ‘Friend of Loneliness’.  I called her this because as she’s a retired model and maybe a bit less common because of that, I feel she’s exotic, so she needed a name to match that. As she would soar for hours alone in the sky, she would be used to being alone and because of that, would be a friend of loneliness.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Next is Emyrs my Schleich Bald Eagle. He is my male bird of prey, and I think he’s a really fantastic bird from Schleich but again, he is sadly retired. Again, it makes me think they should try and work on doing great realistic birds like this again. He adopts a very dynamic taking off pose balanced on branch with huge, tall wide wings, which makes for a very dramatic sculpt. Schleich have got the body shape and sculpting well but I’m not sure about that blue-grey band encircling the feathers? Dunno if I like it, or rather, I’m not even sure what it is or if it’s realistic for the species.
Overall, Emyrs’s colouring is mid brown with white head and tail which seems realistic enough, and though his beak is bright yellow, his face and head sculpt is probably the weakest of them all as I feel it’s the shallow, staring and unfocused eyes he has that gives him a far less realistic look in comparison to the other above bird sculpts. However, what is a winner for me is the branch underneath is probably the best sculpted of all three but Emyrs’s head and overall look seems a tad lesser on the realism scale?
I called him Emyrs as, in Welsh it apparently means immortal, no real reason for that except it seems to suit him, in that he’s a strong and powerful bird that I feel the symbolism of strength etc. associated with eagles will always be the case. Or something like that…

Rating: Hawk- 5/5
Peregrine Falcon –4/5
Bald Eagle – 4/5

I have this Schleich peregrine falcon and it is the only one that I have!

 I don't have any bald eagle exept the recent Papo african fisher one but this Schleich one is great!

I have been grappling with the need to optimize space over these years, and one of the situations I have been considering is favoring bird figures that do not have their wings spread open. I have failed miserably because I believe many species look better with wings spread open, namely diurnal birds of prey. For the Peregrine Falcon, I settled for the CollectA figure. It's probably not the best representation of the species, but it's a figure that pleases me. I even bought this Schleich version, since I couldn't get the older one, but I ended up exchanging it because my version was the less interesting variation. As for the Papo model, I have completely ignored it to the point of not having an opinion about it, and honestly, it seems to be a decent figure.
My Bald Eagle is from Mojo, a very good model although the flattened wing posture doesn't favor it. I really wanted the old perched version from Schleich that I never managed to get, and I might end up acquiring the current one from Papo, which seems even better to me. This Schleich eagle, despite being very beautiful, seems inspired by porcelain figures made for decorating furniture, leaning more towards the decorative aspect than the realism of the figure. Perhaps the use of the color blue is intended to evoke a certain shine on the feathers, but even that is absent, as the coloring of this bird is predominantly matte without any blue at all.

Yeah Roger, perhaps they are going for a decorative look on the eagle, though that blue stripe really does look strange to me, I'd rather have it absent actually

Birds of prey are some of my favorite to collect. The Schleich & Papo peregrine falcons are my favorite out of other brand's falcons.

I remember being so excited when I got Papo's falcon because I loved the soaring position the wings were in. The Schleich is painted so beautifully too. Although the Papo one was always my favorite when I was younger

Thanks Joliezac, they are fantastic sculpts alright!