Why are Harris hawks the most popular bird of prey used in falconry in the UK today?
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The Harris hawk is not native to the UK, so why is it such a popular bird in UK falconry?
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Something you’d never normally see a Peregrine do in the wild
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Feather maintenance is a high risk business!
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Living with a baby snowy owl - Argyll's first month
/Living with a baby Snow Owl
We bought Argyll, our baby Snowy Owl, from the Scottish Owl Centre in July 2018 when he was not quite 2 weeks old. He proved to be our most popular bird in his first summer with us and we really enjoyed watching him develop. It happens fast!
The rate of change of a fluffy owlet to a fully grown owl is astonishing and we think you'll enjoy the process, so we have been keeping a diary of Argyll's progress. Some of it has been shared on our Facebook group, The Scottish Countryman's Owls, but in this post we'll share more of the rapid growth and dramatic change in a snowy owl chick over just a 4-week period.
First, here's how Argyll looked when we first collected him:
Argyll’s first day with us
As you can see, Argyll was mostly covered in grey fluff, which is actually feather but doesn't yet look like feather! This covering serves two purposes: it keeps the young owls warm and it protects their incoming feathers. It’s a bit like padding!
Argyll’s beak was very prominent in his face, dark coloured and surrounded by most black feathering. His eyes were a pale yellow and very round in their outline. He sat on his hunkers, feet protruding and white feathers over this huge black talons. His feet are definitely worth a closer look! These are his future weapons, and already - even at 10 days/2 weeks old - they look pretty fierce, don’t they?!
Argyll settled in quickly, taking over the dogs’ bed for himself and making himself at home in a section of the sitting room where we put down a waxed table-cloth for him to potter about on.
Argyll decides to take over the dogs’ bed
Like all babies, he’d be full of beans one minute - exploring and busy and inquisitive - and then sleeping the next. Argyll just ‘crashed’ whenever and wherever his batteries ran out: face down, legs out behind him, feet turned upward, and looking a bit like a deflated balloon.
He was only about 10 inches tall - about 25cm - at this point, and not very elegant on the move. It’s tough to get about on your heels, though, and HOT in all that fluff…
The downy grey covering of fluff that Argyll started with changed to more recognisable feathers at the tail and outer edges of his wings first
The new feathers are a fabulous whiter-than-white, with black splodges that are characteristic of young and female snowy owls, but will mostly disappear when Argyll reaches full maturity in a couple of years time. Snowy Owl males are all white, as you’ll see from this image, below, comparing baby Argyll with his very handsome dad!
Day by day, Argyll’s feathers grow in, extending up his wings and filling out his tail. The photo at the end of this group of 3 was taken only 3 days apart!
And then the dark colouring on Argyll’s head starts to lighten and change, as white feathers grow to replace the dark ones around his eyes and beak.
New versus old: feather growth changes Argyll’s face
Exploring outside
Argyll spent a lot of time roaming around outside each day, getting more active as his confidence grew and his mobility improved. His growing feathers are quite heavy, though, so he struggled a bit to manoeuvre them, seeming to surprise himself when he first started to flap his wings!
One week after he first arrived, Argyll is exploring his new flying field
As well as getting used to his new home, Argyll had to get used to the other animals here, including the other birds of prey (at a distance) and the dogs, Peter and Shinty. The dogs are used to birds, of course, but there’s always some interest in a new member of the team, so we are careful to introduce them gradually and to watch closely. Here’s Argyll just hanging out with Pete on a perfect summer’s day!
Peter the Patterdale terrier with Argyll
And exploring the mews area - where Fergus the Eagle Owl lives - on another sunny day…
As Argyll’s feathers came in, his size increased, doubling in the first two weeks and then growing rapidly for the next 2. I made the photos the same size to show his change in appearance in the before-and-after shot, below, but he was twice the height in the right hand photo!
When we weighed Argyll, 4 weeks after we first got him, he was 1.3kg - or 2.5lbs. He still has a lot of feathers growing and more to come through, which increases his weight.
Steve weighs Argyll, August 2018
This is because feather quills that are growing are filled with blood, so are heavier than full-gown feathers. It’s a similar process to you growing finger nails. You have blood behind the new nail as it emerges from the nail bed, then no blood once it has grown out past the nail bed.
At 4 weeks after he arrived, approximately 6 weeks old, Argyll is almost fully grown. He only has another 2 weeks to go before he becomes fully-feathered and, at that point, his flying training will start in earnest.
Here’s what the early flying practice phases look like. You can see there’s a long way to go, but he’s got plenty of time and we’ll be covering Argyll’s progress in a subsequent blog post.
Anything you’d like to know about baby Snowy Owls? Post your questions or comments below. If you’d like to learn more about where we got Argyll, you might like to read my post all about The Scottish Owl Centre.
Fletcher - a peregrine and a gentleman
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A key member of our team, Fletcher the male peregrine…
Read MoreLucky Jim: what happened when our merlin was attacked by a buzzard
/Lucky Jim
Peter Patterdale, Merlin Jim and Falconer Steve
Our little merlin, Jim, had a very lucky escape recently - he survived a buzzard attack! Here’s the story of our ‘Lucky Jim’. (Click on the images to enlarge them.)
Merlins are the smallest falcon native to the UK and, as you may already know, in birds of prey, the males are always smaller than the females. Our male merlin Jim is a tiny bird. He stands about 6 inches tall (15cm) and weighs in at only 5oz or 155g, approximately.
We got Jim in August from a top quality breeder of merlins based in N/E England. Steve has always loved merlins; he used to breed merlins about 25 years ago so he was delighted to have a wee falcon again and keen to get going with it.
“Getting going” with a new falcon means spending a great deal of time with it, in the first instance. The bird has to get used to you and its new surroundings, used to being handled and to its new ‘equipment’ - the jesses, leash and swivel.
As with all birds used in falconry in the UK, Jim was bred in captivity, so he’s not ‘wild’, as such, but he was certainly untrained. It’s Steve’s role as a falconer to train Jim, to prepare him to stand on the gloved fist, to be able to hunt, or to fly to the lure. He does this by taking him out every day, sometimes just to walk with him on the glove, other times to fly with him out in the fields surrounding our base at Hammer Inn or on site, using the lure to keep Jim’s attention here.
Jim settled in fast and was doing really well. People are often surprised that birds of prey have characters but they most certainly do and you can tell quite quickly what sort of character they have. Jim’s is easy-going; he’s very smart, gentle and keen. He and Steve clicked almost straight away and Steve was thoroughly enjoying training Jim. He even had Jim out hunting a couple of times (photos and video below), with Pete the Patterdale. (You can read more about merlin falcons and how they hunt in my blog post on Merlins.)
Jim, our jack (male) merlin on a fence post during a hunting session
By early September, Jim was very much part of the team. Here he is (below) in the line-up of a static display at Wormistoune, where Steve did a falconry show to help with fundraising for Maggie’s Cancer charity. Jim was very steady on the block and his small size attracted a lot of attention, especially from children who thought his size made him a baby falcon. He is, in a way, having only been bred in May, but he is fully-grown, as all birds of prey are by the time they are 6-8 weeks old.
When not with Steve, Jim spends a lot of time on his block. He’s tethered, of course, to stop him flying away - just as you would put a lead on a dog to stop it running off - but sitting still for hours on end and just watching is what falcons do.
Birds of prey use flight as a means to escape or to hunt so one that’s fed is quite happy to sit for hours at a time, resting and not using energy unnecessarily. (It takes a lot of energy to fly!) It’s where the term ‘fed-up’ comes from: a bird that’s full (i.e. ‘fed-up’) won’t fly; it does nothing. So we say, when we’re bored and doing nothing, that we’re ‘fed up’. It’s an expression taken straight from falconry, like ‘under the thumb’!
Anyhow, one afternoon Jim was out on his block with the rest of the team and Steve had a falconry booking that he was preparing for. He had boxed the harris hawks and hooded the falcons and walked away from the weathering area to put some rubbish in the bin. Only a minute or two later he heard Jim’s kek-kek-kek cry, and knew Jim was in distress because he was shouting very loudly - an alarm call.
Steve ran back to the weathering as fast as he could.
When he came round the corner of the workshop, to his horror Steve saw a large female buzzard just taking off from beside Jim’s block, leaving Jim lifeless on the ground.
Footage from our CCTV camera
Poor Jim!
Steve went over to Jim and untied his leash and picked him up. Jim was completely still, and stayed limp in Steve’s hand. Distraught, Steve brought him into the house, convinced he was dead. However, once inside, Jim opened his eyes. He was breathing very heavily and clearly in distress so we thought he was dying and just held him in a blanket to keep him warm.
When a bird is attacked by another bird of prey, they are usually badly injured with puncture wounds from talons, or have feather and flesh torn off by the attacker’s beak. Because Jim was lying on his front, it was difficult to see any marks on him so we couldn’t tell what damage the buzzard had done.
Remarkably, within about twenty minutes, Jim started to move. We placed him inside a travel box - amazed that he could even stand - to give him a calm, quiet space to rest. But there still seemed little hope that he would recover.
A female buzzard weighs about 3lbs or 1.3 kgs and is around 21 inches (55cm) tall, so that’s quite a size advantage over little Jim!
Steve reckoned she’d only had half a minute or so on Jim before Steve had run back to the weathering but that’s more than enough time to have inflicted fatal damage. And if he was somehow, incredibly, not badly wounded, would Jim survive the shock?
Lucky Jim
Later that evening, to our surprise and relief, Jim was still alive and Steve managed to get him to eat a little. Jim had blood on his cere (the blue bit above his beak where his nostrils (known as nares) are and he was breathing heavily so still plenty to be concerned about. However, Jim spent the night in his travel box and was still going strong in the morning.
We are hugely fortunate to live near an experienced and expert falconer-vet, Keith, who practises out of the Eden Veterinary Practice at Cupar. Keith agreed to fit Jim in that morning so that he could be checked over and given antibiotics. When Steve came back with Jim later that day, we were both astounded: Keith could find no obvious signs of injury (other than the bit of blood on his cere); Jim had the laboured breathing but, otherwise, seemed fine!
You can see from the video (above) how hard the buzzard whacked Jim and you can see that she pinned him down and that Jim stops moving. It looks like she held Jim by his head with one of her talons (explaining the blood on his cere) and, perhaps, that blocked his airway so that he lost consciousness. In fact, that may well be what saved Jim’s life: it may have stopped the buzzard going in for the kill because she may have thought he was already dead.
Keith had said Jim was to be on antibiotics for 5 days and - if he made it to then - should be fine. He did and he is! He gained a little weight - up an ounce to 180 grams - which really made his feistiness come through, but that was the only change in him. Lucky Jim!
Steve’s next job was a net job. He wanted to protect the birds when they are sitting out on the weathering lawn so he ordered some 4” predator netting (used to protect ponds from herons, and the like) and installed it across the entire weathering. It’s perfect - reassuring but not too distracting.
The buzzard watched from a distant fence post while Steve put the netting up but we haven’t see her since, so hopefully she’s got the message and moved on.
Jim has now fully recovered. The hunting season has passed so it’ll be next year before Jim gets to go out hunting again with Steve and Pete. He’s back in his mews at night and frequently out on his block by day, but now safe(r) under the predator netting.
Jim’s definitely proved he’s a tough little bird and his resilience has been remarkable. He’s still in his first year, of course, and could live until he’s 12 - 15 years old, so we hope he’ll have many more years with us.
If, in time to come, you visit us for a falconry experience, I hope Jim’s still here for you to see*. And when you do, you’ll know why we might sometimes refer to our merlin as Lucky Jim.
*Or not… as it turned out. I’m sorry to say that Jim died suddenly, only a couple of weeks later, and just when he seemed to be fully recovered. We reported the news on our Facebook page.
I hope you enjoyed Jim’s story. (And if you were one of the many people who sent messages of support and good wishes to Jim on Facebook and Twitter when all this happened - thank you very much!)
Anything else you’d like to know about Jim? Or about merlins? Please ask in the comments below.
Other posts you may be interested in
Photos and video
Deborah Brazendale
The white-tailed eagle
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How many birds of prey can you name that you can see in the wild in Scotland? Six? Maybe twelve? Perhaps more?
Although perhaps most famous for its peregrine falcon, it may surprise you to know that Scotland is home to more than 20 varieties of bird of prey. This series introduces you to some of the birds of prey that you can see across Scotland. This post: the white-tailed sea eagle.
Read MoreThe merlin
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How many birds of prey can you name that you can see in the wild in Scotland? Six? Maybe twelve? Perhaps more?
Although perhaps most famous for its peregrine falcon, it may surprise you to know that Scotland is home to more than 20 varieties of bird of prey. This series introduces you to some of the birds of prey that you can see across Scotland. This post: the merlin.
Read MoreWhere do your birds come from?
/Sourcing birds of prey for Inspired Falconry
If you've been following our series on what birds of prey can be seen in Scotland, you'll know that more than twenty species of raptor can be found in Scotland. Yet none of these are ever going to end up in the Inspired Falconry team, or - for that matter - any other team.
Why?
Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, it is illegal to remove any bird from the wild. Eggs, nests, birds and their habitats are all covered by the Act to ensure that our native species can thrive.
So how do falconers like Steve get their birds of prey?
The answer is that all of the raptors used in falconry in the UK today are either captive-bred in this country or imported under licence. Birds of prey bought from these breeders must come with the necessary legal paperwork, which - depending on the bird and its status under the law - may simply be confirmation of origin or an Article 10, which is like a passport for a bird. The Article 10 paperwork, for 'Schedule 4' endangered birds (9 of them, including the peregrine, merlin and golden eagle) contains information about the bird's parents and is matched with a numbered ring on the bird's leg. The Government Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) oversees this registration process.
British captive-bred stock may stem from wild-captured birds taken under licence or before the 1981 Act. Birds are bred in captivity by dedicated, skilled falconers and breeders who have learned to replicate nature as closely as possible in order to achieve any success.
Why and how did captive-breeding start?
Captive breeding was initially a reaction to raptor population devastation caused by pesticides such as DDT in the 1950s. Changes in farming practices (enabled by pesticide use) and the effect of the poisons themselves decimated bird numbers during the 1960s. Prey species were drastically reduced in number and diversity and raptors' eggs were damaged by the pesticides, preventing their shells from developing properly. Raptor numbers declined sharply. Starting with peregrines, a small number of falconers set out to breed them in captivity, helping to save and then strengthen the population over time.
Captive-bred birds can be released successfully into the wild, using a process called 'hacking', which we'll cover in another post.
The network of UK's falconers and their mutual interests and interactions means that birds are now routinely exchanged or sold between them, depending on need and circumstances. Where a falconer can no longer provide a bird with the hunting grounds or secure mews it needs, another falconer will take on the bird instead. Some birds live for many years and may be retired from a breeding programme or from hunting, living out their days in more sedate places such as Falconry Centres, Owl Sanctuaries and Safari Parks across the UK.
Those of you who remember Peggy, our peregrine (pictured above), may recall that she was a retired breeding bird. You can see from her really dark colouring that she's a mature female. Ailsa the Eagle Owl (below), on the other hand, was only about 4 years old (and called something else) when she was bought by Steve from friends who could no longer fly her every day.
Ailsa was previously named Precious ;-)
How much are birds of prey?
Not that you'd ever want to buy one, unless you were highly experienced or properly trained and had the appropriate set-up, but we're often asked how much the birds are worth. The rather unsatisfactory answer is that it depends. It depends on the quality, gender, rarity, and training; it depends on the breeder and the birds' availability! It depends on what they are used for and how old they are. But, as a broad example, a mature, trained female Golden Eagle would fetch anywhere from £5,000-£7,000, whilst a male Barn Owl can be found for under £100. The cleaning bills and food preparation are a whole other story, though!
No matter where they have sourced them, falconers like Steve are passionate about birds of prey and pride themselves in their husbandry and care. It takes many hours and needs daily input to keep a bird in peak condition. A bird's condition is evident - in their eyes, their feathers, their feet and their general demeanour. It certainly affects their ability to fly or to hunt. But that's another post for another day!
Want to know more?
If you've enjoyed this post and would be interested in learning more about birds of prey, falconry or all things 'Scottish Countryman, please subscribe to The Scottish Countryman's blog.
If you have an idea for a future blog post, or just a falconry-related question you've always wanted to ask, please let us know.
If you'd like to experience birds of prey up close, why not book a Bird of Prey Experience with us?
The red-tailed kite
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How many birds of prey can you name that you can see in the wild in Scotland? Six? Maybe twelve? Perhaps more?
Although perhaps most famous for its peregrine falcon, it may surprise you to know that Scotland is home to more than 20 varieties of bird of prey. This series introduces you to some of the birds of prey that you can see across Scotland. This post: the red-tailed kite.
Read MoreThe tawny owl
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How many birds of prey can you name that you can see in the wild in Scotland? Six? Maybe twelve? Perhaps more?
Although perhaps most famous for its peregrine falcon, it may surprise you to know that Scotland is home to more than 20 varieties of bird of prey. This series introduces you to some of the birds of prey that you can see across Scotland. This post: the tawny owl.
Read More
