🎯 Hunting & Training · 8 min
Entering, and the hunt itself
Why this matters
Everything up to now was preparation. This lesson is about the day the bird actually gets a chance, and about not wasting it.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- Define entering and describe how to set a bird up to succeed
- Describe how to make in to a bird on its first kill
- Characterise the behaviour of common quarry species under a hawk
Entering
To enter a bird is to introduce it to a quarry species it has not hunted before, and the point is to give it an easy chance. You engineer a situation that maximises the odds of a catch, and if it catches, you let it feed up on the quarry. What you are building is a good association and a search image for that species. A hard first slip at a new quarry teaches the wrong lesson.
Acceptable quarry for a new hawk is broad, and for a duck flight specifically you want a single duck or a small group, not a raft.
Making in
Coming in to your red-tail on her first kill should be done deliberately and cautiously. Slowly and steadily, no sudden approach, no reaching. The bird has never had this experience and is deciding, right now, whether you are a partner or a thief.
Quarry, as the manual describes it
- Pheasant. Adults are seldom taken on the first rise and usually pull away from a goshawk, Harris's or red-tail. If the bird persists it starts gaining. If the pheasant takes cover with your hawk perched above it, flush it again: a pheasant can be flown once and win, twice and it loses almost every time. A cock pheasant is slower and easier to follow in the air than a hen, but far more trouble on the ground, where it will kick and fight with its spurs.
- Duck. Ducks are as reluctant as a falcon to fly into trees or brush, and generally will not enter cover unless hit or forced down by a near miss. Once down and hiding, they are very hard to find. At altitude, a falcon is most likely to take an individual that breaks from the flock, for instance a hen mallard climbing away over land. Falcons are normally reluctant to take waterfowl over big water, and aggressive quarry often discourages them.
- Jack rabbits are difficult because they are fast and good at dodging.
- Starlings are best taken by a Kestrel from close range while they are bathing.
After the strike
A falcon that misses is likely to throw up, rising steeply on outstretched wings. A bird that binds has seized and held the quarry, which is what you want. A bird that crabs, fighting another hawk in the air or over the kill, is what you do not.
Bagged quarry
When the exam asks what bagged quarry is, the answer is none of the above. Releasing captive-reared or hand-held game for a hawk to catch is neither legal falconry practice in the ordinary sense nor an accepted training tool. Hunting domestic game birds on a licensed shooting preserve under ECL 11-1903 is a separate, legal thing, and it is done under the small game rules like any other hunt.
From the field
Your red-tail chases a pheasant two hundred yards, the pheasant dives into a brush pile, and your hawk lands in an oak above it. Your instinct is to call the bird down and go home happy. What does the manual say to do? Make every effort to put that pheasant back in the air. A pheasant that has been flown once loses on the second flush almost every time, and your bird learns that persistence pays.
This lesson is part of the NY Falconry Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.