Falconry
About Falconry
Falconry, the hunting of quarry
with trained birds of prey, has been a sport and pastime for
thousands of years and several species
have been trained by humans to utilize their innate skills of agility,
speed and reaction, to pursue their natural quarry for sport and
food for the table.
Traditional falconry birds include the
peregrine falcon, the goshawk, the golden eagle and gyrfalcon.
Cheshire Falconry
fly peregrines and many other species of bird of prey all trained
using much the same techniques as were first employed over three
and a half millennia ago. Although it is possible to provide
experiences with birds that are trained to hunt we aim to show
with most of
our falconry experiences the types of birds that can be trained
using traditional techniques, and these include a much greater
diversity of species. However, certain species , for example
the harris’ hawk, is both amiable enough to be suitable for everyday
hands-on work with guests at the centre but also able to show-off
its hunting prowess in the field too.
Falconry equipment is a mixture of the traditional and state of
the art. The leatherwork jesses and anklets (aylmeris) have remained
essentially unchanged for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
However, we use highly sophisticated radio transmitters and receivers
in order to track errant birds meaning that losses are extremely
rare.
Falconry relies on appetite management and the building up
of a relationship with the bird through a process called
manning. This
is where, by gentle exposure to a variety of new experiences
the bird becomes increasingly confident. In this way the
hawk can become
extremely relaxed around stimuli that would scare a wild bird
significantly such as dogs, cars or groups of people. You
can aliken this process
to the training that a police dog or horse must go through in
order to go on active duty.
Falconry has been practiced in the British
Isles for many hundreds of years to our knowledge. It was once
the reserve of the gentry,
possibly because in fuedal Britain,
you would be unlikely to own the hunting rights on a particular
piece of land unless you were a member of the aristocracy. However,
it is also likely that you would be unable to afford some of the
birds of prey used in falconry at the time.
Today the UK is home to falconers numbering
a few thousand. These are people who train their birds and hunt
them at quarry rather
than those who keep birds of prey in aviaries or as “pets”.
Falconry is a time-consuming labour of love and cannot be taken
lightly but at Cheshire Falconry we take on the hard work and let
you enjoy the spoils!
