How a raptor is built

Why this matters

Half of the General section is vocabulary attached to anatomy. Learn the parts once and a whole class of questions turns into recognition rather than recall.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to

Locate the cere, tarsus, hallux, train and deck feathers on a bird

Name the parts of the wing: primaries, secondaries, coverts, alula

Describe the molt sequence in Buteo, Parabuteo and Accipiter, and how it differs in Falco

Head, leg and tail

Cere: the waxy skin at the top of the beak holding the nostrils. Yellow, blue, grey or green depending on species and age. It is on the head, which the exam asks directly.
Tarsus: the lower leg, from the foot up to the first joint. This is where jesses and bewits are attached.
Hallux: the rear toe, carrying the longest talon.
Talon: the claw.
Train: the tail. The odd one out in any list of leg parts.
Deck feathers: the central pair of tail feathers.

The wing

Primaries are the outer flight feathers, secondaries the inner ones. Coverts are the rows of shorter feathers that smooth the surface over the bases of the flight feathers. The alula is the small "thumb" tuft at the bend of the wing. The cere is the trap answer here: it belongs to the head, not the wing.

Molt sequence

Numbering primaries the ornithological way, number 1 is the innermost and number 10 the outermost.

Buteo, Parabuteo, Accipiter: molt starts at primary 1 (innermost) and proceeds outward in sequence to 10.
Falco: molt starts at primary 4 and proceeds in both directions.

The numbering trap

Historically, falconers counted primaries the opposite way round: what is ornithologically number 1 was a falconer's number 10. Modern falconry literature has settled on the ornithological convention, and the exam says "ornithologically" in the stem for exactly this reason. Read that word before you answer.

Growth and plumage

A raptor reaches full size when it leaves the nest, not at six months and not at a year. Juvenile flight feathers run longer than adult feathers, compensating for less developed muscle and less ossified bone, which is why immature birds often look larger than adults. Hard-penned and full summed are synonyms: the blood has withdrawn from the newly grown wing and tail feathers and they have hardened. That is the signal that growth is complete.

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.

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