Falconry meet

A few of you, especially new members, don't know much about me, I have not been on the site recently due to health and some of my live animal obligations but my little zoo will be getting bigger! I have kept and bred wild animals all of my life, things like mountain lions, servals, caracals, binturong, civets, zebras and many more, but last year I passed my test to include raptors.

I have not put up the cages yet for the new birds, that is my spring project, but last week I went to my first falconry meet. I went to meet others who work and breed them, especially aplamado falcons and Harris hawks, two of my favorites. I had a great time, met lots of people and saw some amazing things.

I loved the field trials and hunts the best, I know many of you don't agree with hunting but these birds are not pets, they are just cooperating with their handlers and can fly away at any time they want so if they do not practice hunting with the handler they would not survive when they decide to go.

The field trials were incredable, there was one falcon who flew up to over 1200 ft (400 m) and dove down in a stoop flew through a volunteers legs, hit the lure and flew back up so fast that my cameras continuos setting only caught the falcon in three frames! It was amazing!

Here are a few photos, this is an aplamado falcon, you may notice a small piece of equipment on this birds back in the photo of him flying, this is a telemetry transponder. These are not native hawks, are endangered in the wild so they must keep track of him if he flies away. In this area he would freeze to death at night so here if he flies away they would track him down and recover him, in warmer areas they would try to recover him because he in not native and endangered but he would survive. It is attached to a feather by a special type of glue and will fall off in his next moult.
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Here is a gyrfalcon, which is a bird of the far north
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Here are a couple of Harris hawks
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Here are a few of an aplamado falcon with it's handler following a leather lure
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Wonderful pics my friend

I am glad you are back and I hope healthy!
It is always very interesting to read about your personal experiences. You have surely an exciting life!
Thanks for sharing these pictures of these magnificent animals and congratulations for your new hobby.

It sounds very interesing I would love to see it.

Thank you for sharing your incredible experiences with us. It must be something very exciting !

I hope you recovered and feel better now Phil.

Wow, what wonderful pictures! Congrats on meeting others who are interested! It must be incredible to work with such majestic birds

They're beautiful Phil, such gorgeous birds. I love watching them fly in training/exercising. My brother had a kestrel and I used to go out in the fields with him to watch her sometimes.

You must be really excited